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THE ERRAND 
BOY OF 

ANDREW JACKSON 














































































In a few minutes more the Stars and Stripes arose , 

{See page 266.) 






* 






THE ERRAND 

BOY OF 

ANDREW JACKSON 




########### 





A War Story of 1814 





By W. O. STODDARD 

Author of “ Jack Morgan ” “ The Noank's Log ” 

“Guert Ten Eyck ” i( Cbuck Purdy ” c/c. 





ILLUSTRATED BY 

WILL CRAWFORD 

' » *> * 

■ 


LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BOSTON 


* 


















* 


* 


COPYRIGHT, 1902, 

BY LOTHROP 

PUBLISHING 

COMPANY. 


* 


* 


Published April, 1902. 




THE LIBRARY #F 
<5#NGRESS, 

Two Copies Recess 

MAY. 1 1902 

‘CoPVRkfc^r ;enJrV; * 

c '*> 

CLASS CL XXc. N®. 

t jxc 

: copy £: 
fcrn-T^- ,+r *- 3 


Norfajoofi ^rr«g 

J. 8. Cuihing & Co. — Berwick k Smith 
Norwood Maes. U.S.A. 









Contents 


Chapter 

I. 

The Haunted House . 

• 




Page 

II 

II. 

The Road to Nashville 

• 




28 

III. 

The Sale of the Bay Colt 




45 

IV. 

Shooting at a Mark . 

• 




56 

V. 

General Jackson’s Messengers 




76 

VI. 

Down the Cumberland 

• 




98 

VII. 

No Garrison yet . 

. 




118 

VIII. 

The Bayou Quereau . 

• 




140 

IX. 

Barataria Bay 

• 




160 

X. 

The British at Grand Terre 




182 

XI. 

British Diplomacy 

• 




204 

XII. 

The Canoe Party 

. 




225 

XIII. 

The Army at Mobile . 

• 




241 

XIV. 

Fort Bowyer 

• 




251 

XV. 

Battle Fever Days . 

• 




274 

XVI. 

The British are closing 

IN 




288 

XVII. 

The Barrier of Fire . 

. 




308 















































% 























* 








V 





























I 















* 


•» 

























Illustrations 


“ In a few minutes more the Stars and Stripes arose ” . 



Frontispiece 

Dan sells his Horse .... 

• page 52 

“ 1 You’ll do,’ said General Jackson ” . 

. . page 62 

Jean Lafitte, the Pirate Chief 

. . page 188 


“ The British, heavily reenforced, were coming for¬ 
ward again ”. page 320 








THE ERRAND 
BOY OF 

ANDREW JACKSON 








The Errand Boy 


OF 


Andrew Jackson 

A WAR STORY 0/1814 

CHAPTER I 


THE HAUNTED HOUSE 

OU’LL never get a better rifle, Dan. 



X It’s hard on me that I can’t carry it 
this time. You must go in my place.” 

“ But, father, what if General Jackson won’t 
take me? What if he should say I’m too 
young ? ” 

“ Don’t you be afraid of that, my boy. 
There were just such chaps as you at the 
Horse Shoe Bend battle. We whipped the 
Red Stick Creeks to death, too.” 

“ I want to go,” said Dan, “ but who’s to 




12 


The Errand Boy of 


take care of the farm? You can’t. Jim 
can’t — ” 

“ Yes, I can,” eagerly piped a younger voice. 
“ Mother and I and the girls. Father’s going 
to get well — ” 

“ Mother ? ” said Dan, inquiringly. 

A pair of plump, bare arms went suddenly 
around his neck, and his face was covered 
with kisses before any more words were 
spoken. 

“ Oh, mother,” he said to her, “ I want 
to go — ” 

“ Dan ! Dan ! ” she exclaimed. “ I don’t 
want you to go, and I do. You must go! 
General Jackson must have every last rifle 
that’s left in Tennessee, if he’s to beat off 
the British at New Orleans.” 

A little group stood a few paces in front 
of a large, well-built log house. A road 
passed by, a hundred yards away, and from 
it a lane came to the door between borders 
of dense bushes. Beyond the road, the lane 
passed on between a wheat stubble field on 
one side and a pasture on the other. In 
the latter were horses and cattle feeding, and 



A ndrew Jackson 


13 


a small flock of sheep. Beyond the fields, 
which were wide, the land arose in a high, 
forest-crowned hill. Behind the house were 
barns, outbuildings, corn-cribs, haystacks, and 
beyond these were fields of luxuriant corn, 
reaching to the bank of a narrow, swiftly 
running river. 

It all wore an exceedingly peaceful appear¬ 
ance, but at that hour there was no peace 
anywhere upon all the long border of the 
thirty-years-old republic of the United States. 
On land and water, on its ravaged frontiers, 
on its northern lakes, and on the salt sea, 
the nation was fighting for its rights and for 
its very life. 

Up to the door of Captain Martin’s house, 
that morning, a neighbor had ridden with 
tremendous news from Nashville. That is, 
it came by way of the state capital, but part 
of it had travelled far to get there. From 
across the ocean had come the tidings that 
the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte had fallen, 
and that the armies of the other powers were 
in possession of Paris and of France. 

To Europe, to all the world beyond the 



The Errand Boy of 


H 

Atlantic, this had been of vast importance, 
but what special meaning could it have 
to the plain farmer settlers of Tennessee, 
Kentucky, and the American Southwest? 

Every man of them knew, as soon as he 
heard it. The long delay in the sailing of 
the great British expedition for the capture 
of New Orleans and the Mississippi Valley 
would soon be over. General Pakenham’s 
army was now free to come, and, unless it 
should be defeated, the United States would 
shortly lose forever all the territory pur¬ 
chased from the French emperor by Thomas 
Jefferson. With the great river and its har¬ 
bor mouth would necessarily go the freedom 
of Kentucky and Tennessee, and so the men 
of the West took down their rifles and began 
to mould bullets as soon as they heard the 
news. They did so, moreover, because with 
it came the announcement that their trusted 
leader, Andrew Jackson, had been appointed 
a major general in the regular army, with 
full power to raise troops and to do as he 
might choose with them. At the same time, 
it was well understood that the government 



Andrew Jackson 


15 


at Washington was able to send him very 
little more than his commission and his au¬ 
thority. Troops, or arms, or money, were not 
then at the disposal of President Madison. 

General Jackson had but recently finished 
his terrific campaign against the Red Stick 
Creeks, the hardest fighters of all the tribes 
of the red men. He was now at Nashville, 
wishing sadly that he still had with him 
the forces which had been so worn out, so 
thinned and shattered in battles and marches 
among the Southern forests. His list of killed 
and wounded had been large, considering the 
numbers engaged, and much worse than this 
had been his sick list. It was, therefore, at 
once evident that he must now gather a new 
and larger army, made up only in part of his 
old veterans. 

He must have men for the New Orleans 
campaign, men by the thousand, to meet the 
thousands of England. Where were they to 
be obtained, among the small and scattered 
settlements of the harried and depleted West¬ 
ern frontier? It looked as if he were to 
have few indeed, unless he could draw at 



i6 


The Errand Boy of 


least one man from each household. Even 
if he were to do that, his new army would 
be less than half as numerous as that with 
which he was to contend, for General Paken- 
ham was reported to be bringing with him 
fifteen thousand of the best troops of the 
British army. The raw militia of America 
were expected to face and defeat the iron 
regiments which had broken the power of 
the great French emperor. Mere volunteers, 
untrained, almost unofficered, were to con¬ 
tend with the victorious heroes of the hardest 
fought battles of the Old World. 

To the eyes of military critics, especially to 
European war prophets, the idea was an utter 
absurdity; but it did not seem so to Andrew 
Jackson and the riflemen who had fought 
and beaten the hard-dying Creek warriors. 
No men on earth had ever more absolutely 
and desperately refused to surrender than 
had the brave savages who died at Horse 
Shoe Bend. 

Leaning heavily upon the rude crutch 
under his left arm, Captain Martin stood in 
front of his doorway, holding out and exam- 



A n drew Ja c k s on 


*7 


ining admiringly a long-barrelled rifle. It 
carried a flint-lock, of course, it was stocked 
to the muzzle, it might be somewhat heavy, 
but it was evidently in good condition. 
Naturally enough, with so much war news, 
on his mind, the captain was thinking of 
the things he had done with that weapon. 
Up it came to his shoulder, and he glanced 
along the barrel as if he were taking aim 
at a spot some distance down the lane from 
the road. 

“ Dan,” he said, “ you were a little chap 
then. You don’t remember about it. Right 
there they were, when we sighted ’em. We 
fought ’em all night, afterward, from the 
house, but I dropped one of ’em, just there 
by the sumachs, with this same shootin’ iron. 
It’s a long range, but I took him.” 

“ I can do it,” said Dan, in whose young 
face fierce flushes were coming and going. 
“ I hit a deer, once, as far as that.” 

“ There were six of us at sunset,” contin¬ 
ued his father, lowering his gun. “ Next 
morning there were only three, but we beat 
’em off. Your grandmother was alive then. 



i8 


The Errand Boy of 


She took Tom Atley’s gun, when he went 
down, and she fought like a tiger. So did 
your mother.” 

Other stories followed rapidly upon that 
memory of the old Indian war days. It came 
out among them, that Captain Martin’s 
father had been with Washington from Val¬ 
ley Forge to Yorktown, and that the captain 
himself had been born in a camp. He had 
been an early settler in Tennessee. This 
house and all the region around it swarmed 
with legends of hard fighting, and among 
these Dan had grown up, as far as he had 
grown, and with them he had heard many a 
thrilling story of Washington’s campaigns. 
It was just so with his younger brother, Jim, 
and the fourteen-years-old borderer had now 
obtained possession of the rifle, to strut up 
and down with it, shouldered soldier fashion. 

Mrs. Martin looked at him mournfully for 
a moment, and then she said: — 

“ O dear! He, too, will be in the army, 
some day. Come, girls ! I wish there wasn’t 
any war.” 

She and her two daughters went on into 



Andrew Jackson 


19 


the house, and Dan and his father followed 
them. The room they entered was not by 
any means a small one, and it contained 
many tokens of frontier prosperity. The 
furniture, what there was of it, was pretty 
good for that time and place. On the walls 
hung, however, instead of pictures or other 
works of art, a number of antlers of deer. 
Upon these, as hooks, rested muskets, fowl¬ 
ing-pieces, fishing-rods, and from them hung 
bullet-pouches, powder-horns, pistols, and 
hunting-knives. From one huge pair of 
horns, moreover, dangled in its sheath the 
sword which belonged to Captain Martin’s 
rank in the service, side by side with a long, 
crooked sabre inherited from his Old Conti¬ 
nental father. With these, making the three 
a splendid trophy of family patriotism, hung 
a shorter, broader, heavier blade, which had 
been cut down from an old mill-saw by Mrs. 
Martin’s father, for he had been one of Mari¬ 
on’s men in the Revolutionary War days of 
South Carolina. 

The architecture of the house was that of 
the frontier. A large central cabin had at 



20 


The Errand Boy of 


first been built, fortlike, of long and heavy 
logs. On the back side of this was a huge 
chimney, made of sticks and tempered clay. 
It had two fireplaces, one being in the main 
room, while the other, of smaller size, was 
housed over by an ample addition which 
served as a kitchen. At some later day, 
other additions had been made at the right 
and left, so that the house had now four 
good bedrooms on its lower floor, while the 
loft over the main room supplied another, to 
be reached by a ladder spiked against the 
wall. A hand loom stood, instead of a piano, 
in one corner of the parlor-sitting-room-din¬ 
ing-room, and by it were two spinning-wheels 
and a reel, but they were just now out of 
employment. 

It was evidently near supper time, for the 
table was spread. The crockery was of the 
plainest ware, but there was the rare luxury 
in Tennessee of a tablecloth. The Martins 
were not poor, therefore, and they might 
some day become rich, for several hundred 
acres of the splendid forest land around them 
were all their own. 



Andr ew J a c k s on 


21 


Captain Martin limped slowly to his place 
at one end of the table, taking up the carv¬ 
ing knife and fork as if he were about to 
attack a fat haunch of roasted venison that 
lay before him. He suddenly put them 
down, however, for his wife, who had dropped 
into her chair at the other end of the table, 
bowed her head upon her hands. That was 
what he himself did, for a long silent minute, 
and when he looked up again, he said: — 

“ Helen, Helen! God will surely take 
care of Dan. He took care of me — ” 

“ Yes, John,” she whispered. “ I hope he 
will. I can’t help remembering, though. 
Once, when I was a little girl, father came 
back from one of Marion’s fights with Tarle- 
ton’s cavalry. My oldest brother, Bob, didn’t 
come home with him. I can see my mother’s 
face, now, as she looked out and saw father 
leading Bob’s horse — ” 

There she stopped as if something were 
choking her, and her husband said sooth¬ 
ingly, but with a tremor in his voice: — 

“ Helen, dear, Dan’ll come home again.” 
She might be a soldier’s daughter and a 



22 


The Errand Boy of 


soldier’s wife, but it was very, hard, after 
all, to be also a soldier’s mother, and her young 
rifleman only sixteen years of age. 

He sat there, now, beside his brother Jim, 
while across the table the two girls, Polly and 
Jessie, were staring at him with tears in their 
eyes. Perhaps they were thinking that he 
was handsome, but he was not, except to 
them and to his mother. He was a tall, 
slender, wiry-looking fellow, with curling 
light brown hair and gray-blue eyes. His 
face was sunburned and freckled. His hands 
were large and brown. His dress consisted 
of a home-made blue jeans shirt and buckskin 
leggings, and it was a matter of course that his 
feet were bare in summer time. If he were 
going to town or into the army, however, he 
would probably be decked out also in a buck¬ 
skin hunting shirt, moccasins, and a coonskin 
cap. 

Dan Martin, therefore, was neither stylish 
nor handsome, but there was a peculiar glitter 
in his eyes which gave to his face an expres¬ 
sion or character very different from that of 
many other boys. It was likely that some- 



Andrew Jackson 


23 


thing of the family history and war inheri¬ 
tance had gone into the face of a youngster 
who had never yet hunted in his own woods 
or fished in his own creek without keeping a 
half unconscious watch against possible hos¬ 
tile Indians. His father and mother and 
their friends who came to visit at the house 
had also given him a kind of education in 
war and adventure, such as hardly any other 
set of men and women could have given. It 
would have been a wonder if among them 
they had not filled his busy brain with feverish 
imaginations of heroic things which he was 
yet to do himself. 

Mrs. Martin recovered herself, to lift her 
head and look at Dan; her husband began 
to carve, with steady courage; while Jim, 
a smaller pattern of his elder brother, re¬ 
marked: — 

“ It’s too bad that I can’t go! ” 

“ You’ve the farm to look after,” said Dan. 

“ Well,” said Jim, “ I can shoot. If I was 
half a head taller, they’d take me. Dan’s as 
long as some grown-up men.” 

“ I’ve seen some pretty short-legged sol- 



24 


The Errand Boy of 


diers,” said his father, trying to be cheerful. 
“ Oh, how I wish my leg were well! It’s 
healing.” 

“ Father,” said Mrs. Martin, “ that isn’t all. 
What will he do for money ? He must have 
some. Not a dollar of cash on hand.” 

“I’ve thought of that,” said her husband. 
“ Dan can ride the red colt to Nashville. He 
may sell him there for whatever he can get. 
That’ll be money enough. Soldiers go into 
a campaign without any money. I’ve had to 
do it.” 

“Well,” said she, “I can’t bear to have 
him go unprovided. You can’t guess what’ll 
happen. I’m afraid horses are not selling 
very well, just now.” 

“Well!” said Captain Martin, “he must 
do the best he can. He can have some 
ammunition to start with, and he can buy 
more there.” 

“Bullets?” exclaimed Jessie. “Why, 
father, Polly and I’ve been running bullets 
all the afternoon, while you were asleep and 
the boys were in the corn-field. His pouch is 
as full as he’ll want to carry it.” 



A ndrew J a c ks on 


25 


“Hurrah!” replied her father. “You 
girls’d make as good soldiers as your 
mother.” 

They were showing plenty of war spirit, at 
all events. Part of it came out in vigorous 
promises to do all the work on the farm that 
Dan could have done, so that his absence 
should have no effect on the crops, the horses, 
or the cattle. They were handsome, if their 
brothers were not, and could assert truthfully 
their ability to catch and saddle and ride any 
horse on that farm. 

The evening went by in talks about 
the Creek Indian campaign, about General 
Harrison’s victories in Ohio and Canada, 
about Commodore Perry’s wonderful feats on 
Lake Erie, about other events of the war 
with England, on land and sea; but all their 
thoughts, at last, seemed to drift down the 
Mississippi River. 

Captain Martin was evidently well ac¬ 
quainted with the old Spanish-French set¬ 
tlement which now bore the name of New 
Orleans, and with all the country around it. 
Whatever he knew he was ready to turn over 



26 


The Errand Boy of 


to Dan, to help him and Jackson fight the 
British army. 

“ Most of the folks there talk French to 
this day/’ he said, “as much as they do 
English, or more. I’m glad you’ve picked 
up some French, already, from your mother 
and me, but you’d better lay in as much more 
as you can. Didn’t you get some from Black 
Sam while he was working here ? ” 

“ I reckon I did,” said Dan. “ That darky 
can talk almost anything, but he isn’t good 
for much else.” 

“ He’s an awful fighter,” said the captain. 
“ I wish a regiment just like him were going 
along with Jackson.” 

“Sam knows New Orleans, too,” said Mrs. 
Martin. “ He’s been everywhere, but nobody 
can guess what part of the country he came 
from.” 

“ I don’t know,” growled her husband. “I’ve 
a notion he wouldn’t care to be seen again in 
Maryland. Somebody up there lost a field 
hand, one day, and didn’t think it was worth 
while to follow him down into Florida among 
the Seminoles.” 



Andrew Jackson 


27 


It was later than usual when the Martin 
family went to bed, but they were up and 
stirring at an early hour next morning. All 
the older members, one after another, as soon 
as they made their appearance, inquired: — 

“ Where’s Dan ? ” 

Nobody could tell, at first, but, even before 
breakfast was ready, he and Jim came to the 
front door, leading a large, fine-looking bay 
horse. 

“ All ready, Dan ? ” shouted his father. 
“Well, I can’t spare you a saddle — ” 

“ Don’t want one,” said Dan. “ I can sell 
him or ride him, just as well, bareback.” 

“ That’s so,” replied his father. “ Anything 
else you want you can buy in Nashville — 
Hullo! ” 

“ I declare ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Martin, in the 
doorway. “ If it isn’t Black Sam ! ” 

“ I thought the sheriff was after him,” said 
Polly. “Why, mother, he’ll be caught and 
locked up if he’s found anywhere around here. 
He’s awful! ” 



28 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER II 


THE ROAD TO NASHVILLE 

OMING out from among the bushes at 



the head of the lane, from the road to 
the house, was a shape which would have 
been voted remarkable anywhere, and all the 
Martin family turned out to see it come. 

“ Cap’n Martin,” called out a deep, mellow 
voice, “ I’se heerd the news. Are ye gwine 
to jine Jackson ? I is ! ” 

“ I’m too lame yet,” loudly responded the 
captain. “ Dan’s going in my place.” 

“ He kin shoot,” said the new arrival, with 
a grin which displayed a terrific range of very 
white teeth. “ I’d go ’long wid him, but I 
hain’t got no hoss to go on. I’ll hev to foot it.” 

He was not a tall man, but he was very 
broad-shouldered, while his arms and legs 
seemed out of all proportion for their length. 
A man with such lower limbs might be a fast 
walker, and, with such arms and hands, he 



A 7t dr ew Jackson 


29 


might reach for and pull in almost anything. 
His head also was large, and his coal-black 
skin had an appearance of being drawn tight 
to the skull, so that it could hardly wrinkle, 
except in one deep crease in the middle of his 
low, retreating forehead. His nose was flat 
and his eyes were sunken. Therefore, taking 
him just as he stood, he was an exceedingly 
ugly, if not ferocious-looking, black man. It 
might have been not unlikely that any owner 
of such a human chattel, having also common 
sense, had been at least halfway willing to 
lose him. Captain Martin, himself, had de¬ 
clared roundly: — 

“ Own him ? I’d as lief own a wolf! ” 

His rig, what there was of it, consisted 
mainly of a ragged jeans-shirt and time-worn 
buckskin leggings. He had no shoes, and 
there was no hat upon the gray-black wool 
of his head. At his belt hung a sheath, 
which, for length, might have contained a 
carving-knife, but in it was really an old, 
flat, blacksmith’s file, ground to an edge and 
point, and fitted with a buckhorn haft. He 
had a bullet-pouch and powder-horn slung 



30 


The Errand Boy of 


over his shoulder, and he carried in his left 
hand a short, heavy-barrelled rifle, with a 
flint-lock twice as large as the one on the 
weapon which Jim was holding, ready for 
Dan to take. 

“ Come in and get your breakfast, Sam,” 
said Mrs. Martin. “ Dan’s going to set out 
right away.” 

“ No, thank ye, ma’am,” said Sam, bowing 
very politely. “ I’s had a feed. I mustn’t 
stop nowhar till I git to Nashville. Dan’ll 
hev to foiler the road, and I’ll cut ’cross 
trough the woods. Most likely, he’ll git 
thar pretty nigh as soon as I will. Dat’s a 
good hoss.” 

A laugh that was almost a yell burst from 
his wide, wolfish mouth, as he whirled upon 
his feet with a quickness of motion that 
was enough to make one shudder. Another 
fierce, unhuman scream, or laugh, whichever 
it might be, followed a few moments later, 
not toward the road, but in a beeline for the 
nearest forest. 

“ There he goes,” said Captain Martin. 
“ He’ll swim any river, pick his way through 



A ndrew Ja ckson 


3 i 


any swamp, climb any mountain, and he can 
tire out a horse. He’s a wild beast, but he’s 
one of the right sort for Jackson.” 

They all went into the house then, and 
seemed inclined to be silent. Hardly had 
breakfast been eaten, however, when good 
Mrs. Martin pushed her chair from the table 
and knelt beside it. So they all did, and 
not a sound could be heard, except a sob 
and a low murmur, until she arose again. 

“ Daniel,” she said, “ kiss me good-by. I 
know you’ll do your duty. I can bear it.” 

Dan’s arms were around her tightly for a 
moment, and his answer did him credit. 

“ Why, mother,” he said, “ I won’t get 
killed. What I’ve been worrying about is 
you and the farm and the crops.” 

“We’ll take care of them,” said both of 
the girls and Jim, all speaking at once, and 
Captain Martin added: — 

“Farm? Crops? What’d we care for 
them, if there were British flags a-flying at 
New Orleans and Nashville ? That’s what 
we’re going to have to see, unless Paken- 
ham’s army’s whipped. But England can’t 



32 


The Errand Boy of 


send troops enough to take and hold the 
river country. She’s making a big mistake.” 

It was no time for further talk, and Dan 
walked out, followed by the rest. Jim un¬ 
hitched the bay colt, as they called him, 
although he was six years old, and in an 
instant his young rider was mounted. A 
knapsack containing cooked rations for two 
days was handed up and slung at his back. 
His rifle, pouch, and powder-horn followed, 
and then Dan was carrying a pretty heavy 
load, for the bullets were many, and the rifle 
was not a light one. 

“ Good-by, Dan! Go and take your father’s 
place. Do your duty! ” 

That was the last farewell that he heard, 
as the light-footed bay horse bounded away 
down the lane, and the rest of the Martin 
family stood still and stared after him until 
he was out of sight. 

“ Hurrah! ” he shouted, as he wheeled out 
into the main road. “ I’m going to join 
General Jackson’s army!” 

A feeling of fierce exhilaration seemed to 
have come upon him. He had said his 



Andrew Jackson 


33 


good-bys lovingly enough, but now he was 
not thinking of the old log house, so haunted 
and filled with old war legends and memo¬ 
ries. He was going away from all that, out 
into the world; out among camps and forts 
and fighting men; out into battles and 
victories, such as nobody in all that part of 
the world had ever seen before. He seemed 
to himself to have grown several years older, 
since the war news came to the house. 

The people in that, older and younger, 
were still thinking of him, but somehow or 
other they were not talking much about 
him. Every now and then, however, as the 
day went on, his mother would go to the 
open door and look wistfully down the road. 
Then, more than once, Polly or Jessie would 
go and put an arm around her and kiss 
her, without saying much. As for Jim, he 
seemed to be all over the farm without doing 
any great amount of work in any one place, 
and after dinner he listened eagerly while 
his father told him the history of the swords 
which hung from the deer antlers on the 
wall. He had heard it all before, doubtless, 



34 


The Errand Boy of 


but now, while it was told, his thoughts 
could more feverishly travel away along the 
Nashville road, hunting for a freckle-faced 
boy on a fine bay horse. 

The day went by, and another night was 
drawing slowly nearer. It was hot weather for 
anything like rapid travelling, but the narrow 
road upon which Dan Martin was riding was 
shaded by the giant trees of a forest in which 
no woodman’s axe had been heard since 
that highway was opened. Even at that time 
only a few trees had been cut out, here and 
there, to have a track wide enough for wagon 
wheels, and Dan was justified in asserting: — 

“ It’s as crooked as a ram’s horn. Father 
says it just about doubles the distance. Any¬ 
how, I’ve made a long trail to-day. I reckon 
I must be more’n halfway to Nashville.” 

He may have been right about that, but, 
however fast and far he had ridden, the re¬ 
markably good horse under him showed few 
signs of weariness. Dan spoke of that, but 
what he was now looking for was a running 
stream and a patch of grass for the bay to 
feed on. 



Andrew Jackson 


35 


“He had an hour’s rest at noon,” he said. 
“ But he’ll want a good long one now. Find 
a house ? No, I don’t care to sleep in any 
house. I’m one of General Jackson’s men. 
I’ll camp. ’T wont be the first time, either, 
that I’ve slept in the woods. — Hullo ! That’s 
it! I’m fixed.” 

He had been ascending a long, low hill, 
from the crest of which, as he now went over 
it, he saw the road go down to the border of 
a narrow brook, over which there was no 
bridge. On the other side was a natural 
meadow of several acres, such as were com¬ 
mon in the Tennessee woods. They were 
greatly valued by new settlers, as giving them 
so much cleared land to begin with, without 
any need for tree-chopping. 

The bay stepped forward more briskly as 
soon as he saw that water, and in a few min¬ 
utes his nose was in it, while his rider sat still 
and looked around him. 

“ Well! ” he exclaimed. “ I reckon I know 
this place. They told me of it. Right over 
yonder there was a skirmish with the red¬ 
skins once. Father was in it, and he and his 



36 


The Errand Boy of 


men killed a lot of ’em. He says he reckons 
their war parties didn’t come in again as far 
as this, after that whipping. I hope so. I 
don’t care to be on the lookout for ’em, just 
now. I’m tired.” 

The horse drank freely and walked on, 
and he was not pulled in until he reached the 
edge of the woods on the farther side of the 
meadow. 

“ I won’t camp by the run,” said Dan. 
“Father said there was a good spring, here¬ 
away. There were ten men killed, red and 
white, around that spring. There it is too.” 

It was a very pretty spring, bubbling up at 
one side of a glassy pool from which a little 
rill went out; and Dan dismounted to get a 
cool drink for himself, and to get rid of his 
burdens. He tethered the bay at the end of 
a long lariat, and patted and groomed him for 
a minute or so. Then he left him to nibble 
the grass, and went to his knapsack. 

“Make a fire?” he said inquiringly. “No, 
I don’t need to kindle any fire. I guess the 
bears and painters and wolves’ll let me 
alone for one night, so near the settlements.” 



Andrew Jackson 


37 


He might have added that midsummer is 
not the time for any danger of attacks from 
wild animals, and that cattle in the fields 
were considered entirely safe. It was hardly 
so at any time, however, with sheep, and the 
settlers obtained what little wool they re¬ 
quired for their home spinning only by exer¬ 
cising great care for the protection of their 
not very numerous flocks. 

Not even so much as a blanket to sleep on 
had Dan brought with him, but he took off 
his buckskin hunting-shirt and moccasins. 
He was not accustomed to wearing so much 
in hot weather. Moreover, he was willing to 
take especial care of so very fine a hunting- 
shirt as had been made for him by his 
mother and sisters. Their skill had also 
been shown in the making of his trim, well¬ 
fitting coonskin cap, but his beaded mocca¬ 
sins had been purchased of a Cherokee 
squaw by Black Sam and then traded to 
Mrs. Martin for bacon. 

Dan lay down full length at the foot of a 
tall oak, after eating nearly all that was left 
of his cooked rations. The shadows were 



3« 


The Errand Boy of 


deepening and the air was getting cooler, for 
there was a breeze at work among the tree- 
tops. It was one of the best places in all 
the world for a young soldier to lie and 
think. At first his thoughts went back to 
the home he had left, and he almost seemed 
to himself to see them at the supper table. 
He was quite sure, too, that they were think¬ 
ing of him ; but his mind turned away from 
the household group in the cabin to wander 
off after General Jackson and his army, and 
after the great fleet and all the British regi¬ 
ments which it was bringing over to capture 
the Mississippi River valley. 

“ I’d like to see that fleet,” he said to him¬ 
self. “ I never saw anything bigger’n a 
canoe or flatboat. I’ll get a look at those 
ships, if I can, though, after our army reaches 
New Orleans.” 

Suddenly, with a spring like that of a 
startled deer, he was on his feet, reaching out 
for his rifle, that was leaning against the tree. 
He had heard a sound like the snapping of a 
dry twig under a heavy foot, and all his for¬ 
est training bade him to be ready for a pos- 



Andrew Jackson 


39 


sible enemy. He was behind the tree, rifle 
in hand and cocked, when a low, grating, 
mocking laugh, came from the direction of 
the breaking twig. 

“ All right, Massa Dan. It ain’t no Injin 
dis time, dough. Sam’s done foun’ ye.” 

“ Hullo! Sam, is that you ? ” replied Dan. 
“ Come along. Who’s with you ? ” 

“ Nobody ain’t wid me,” chuckled Sam, as 
he came striding nearer. “ I reckoned yo’d 
camp by dis yer spring. Why hasn’t yo’ 
built no fiah ? Nebber sleep in de woods 
wid a hoss and no fiah.” 

“ I didn’t reckon I wanted one,” said Dan. 

“ Yes, yo’ does, den,” insisted Sam, and he 
at once proceeded to gather fuel, without any 
further explanations. 

Dan watched him curiously, for Sam did 
not make his heap of sticks and bark near 
the spring. He selected a spot fifty yards 
away, and it was remarkable how quickly he 
kindled a blaze with flint and steel. As 
soon as he had done so, he went and teth¬ 
ered the bay colt about halfway between the 
fire and the tree where Dan had been lying. 



40 


The Errand Boy of 


“ I understand, I reckon,” thought Dan. 
“Now I can see him, whenever I wake up. It 
looks like some old Indian warpath notion.” 

“ Massa Dan,” said Sam, “ I jist didn’t 
reckon yo’d catch up wid me so soon as dis. 
I hope yo’ hasn’t run yer hoss too hard.” 

“He’s all right,” said Dan. “ But what I 
want most is a good long sleep.” 

Down he lay again, and Black Sam threw 
himself on the grass a few paces nearer the 
horse. Dan asked him several questions about 
his swift tramp across country, but Sam kept 
up an old reputation that he had for never 
telling where he had been or what he had 
seen. Before long, therefore, both of them 
were sound asleep. The last idea to fade 
out of the mind of Dan, however, was a 
strong suspicion that his black friend had 
not told him all of his reasons for making 
what still seemed to be an almost needless 
fire. His next thought came to him long 
hours afterwards. He did not, indeed, know 
whether the time passed had been long or 
short when he felt Sam’s hand upon his 
shoulder, and heard him whisper: — 



Andrew Jackson 


4i 


“ Massa Dan! Wake up! Lie still! 
Watch out! Git yo’ gun ready.” 

Dan silently did so, for it lay at his side 
now, and it was in his hand when he cau¬ 
tiously turned over to watch the movements 
of his strange comrade. The negro lay flat 
without any movement at all for a moment. 
The woods were silent, except for the low, 
mysterious murmur which always fills the 
forest air at night. The fire, out there on 
the edge of the open, was burning low, but 
it still sent out a ’ dull, red glare among 
the shadows. The horse was on his feet 
and was pawing the ground as if something 
had made him restive. 

“ Hist! ” whispered Sam. “ See ’im ? 
He’s come for de hoss! ” 

In an instant Dan was alone, for Sam 
crept away like a snake, disappearing among 
the trees and undergrowth. There was no 
other living thing to be seen but the bay, 
and Dan lay still, watching him, with his 
rifle levelled in that direction. 

“ It can’t be an Indian,” he was all but 
thinking aloud, when he saw a tall shape 



42 


The Errand Boy of 


arise out of the grass a few paces from the 
sapling to which the bay was tethered. 

“ Tisn’t Black Sam,” he thought. “ Where 
is he ? ” 

No, not Sam. It was a taller, thinner 
man, wearing a buckskin shirt and a broad- 
brimmed straw hat, and he at once began to 
unfasten the colt. 

By all the laws of the frontier, Dan Martin 
had a right to shoot that man, caught in the 
act of stealing a horse in the woods. A shot 
might have missed, however, in that uncer¬ 
tain light, and once more Dan showed the 
effect of his education, his long training in 
the wisdom of the woods. He knew that it 
must be best not to interfere with the plans 
of such a fellow as Black Sam, and all he 
at once did was to arise and go swiftly on 
from tree to tree, toward the open. He was 
a number of paces nearer when he saw the 
stranger begin to put a bridle upon the head 
of his prize, and his anger was almost too 
much for his prudence. Up came his rifle. 

“ I can hit him now,” he thought. “ I will, 
too, if Sam doesn’t get there. — Agh! ” 



A ndrew Ja ckson 


43 


His loud, involuntary exclamation came 
just in time to make the thief turn his head, 
so that he lost his chance for seeing Black 
Sam arise from the grass on the other side 
of the horse. It was only a delay of a mo¬ 
ment that was gained, however, and the bay 
might have had a strange rider if Sam had 
not been so very near and so quick. There 
was not even time for the thief to lift his 
gun, and he dropped it to face Sam with a 
dirk in his hand. 

“ Will ye give up, or won’t ye ? ” fiercely 
demanded Sam, springing forward. 

“ Not to any nigger,” scornfully responded 
the robber. “ Drop that knife ! ” 

It was a curious illustration of the then ex¬ 
isting social conditions and ideas, but most 
black men would have instantly obeyed. 
Hardly a slave in Tennessee would have 
taken the responsibility of fighting a well- 
dressed white man. Black Sam, however, 
was not a slave and he was not an ordinary 
negro. His only reply was a loud, mocking 
laugh, as the robber grappled him. No doubt 
the latter was a man of desperate courage, 



44 


The Errand Boy of 


and he might also have been a strong and 
dangerous fighter. He was nearly by a 
head the taller of the two. For some rea¬ 
son, Sam had dropped his gun, and in his 
hand was the long, keen-edged file-knife. 
Many years afterward, the famous Colonel 
James Bowie made for himself precisely such 
a knife, and with it he gained the reputation 
which gave his name to a multitude of all 
sorts of sharp weapons. 

Dan was now coming at a run, but he saw 
a large, black hand catch the robber’s wrist, 
above the dirk-handle, and he exclaimed: — 
“ Sam’s got him ! I’ll catch the colt! ” 

It would have been a serious disaster to 
his part of General Jackson’s army to have 
allowed that spirited animal to get away into 
the woods. Dan caught him in the nick of 
time, for the bay was getting frightened, but 
when he turned his head for another look at 
the two combatants, only one of them was 
standing. 



Andrew Jackson 


45 


CHAPTER III 


THE SALE OF THE BAY COLT 


S AM, are you hurt?” asked Dan, excit¬ 
edly, as he pulled his rearing colt around 
and tried to get nearer. 

“No, Massa Dan,” said Black Sam, coolly. 
“ I isn’t hurt a mite, but I jist had to kill him. 
It’s ole Bill Jeckler, the mountain hoss thief. 
I seed him on the road, yesterday, an’ I done 
watch out for him. He’s gone dead now.” 

“ Couldn’t you have tied him, if I’d ha’ come 
to help ? ” asked Dan. 

“ Dunno,” growled Sam. “ Fact is, Massa 
Dan, he’s laid out more’n one feller ’at tried 
to bring him in. It aint bes’ to fool too long 
wid a debbil. So! Dar’s a reward o’ fifty 
dollars foh him, in Nashville, dead or alive. 
I’s right down glad yo’ was along w’en I 
killed him. Yo’ kin witness foh me.” 

“ I can do that,” said Dan, staring down 
upon the heavily bearded face of the slain 



46 


The Errand Boy of 


desperado. “ I’ve heard the worst kind of 
things of his doing. He was as cruel as a 
Creek Indian. He was a horse thief and a 
murderer.” 

“Jes’ so,” said Sam, “ an’ he didn’t keer 
much w’ot he murdered. Yo’ hole on, a bit. 
I’d bes’ go an’ hunt foh de boss he was ridin’. 
Mos’ likely dah’s a reward foh dat, too. I 
reckon Bill Jeckler nebber bought a critter 
an’ paid foh it, in all his life.” 

He could, at all events, be very sure that 
the Nashville authorities would take charge 
of any animal found in the possession of a 
noted outlaw. 

“ Hark ! ” he exclaimed. “ Dah he is! ” 

It was so, for a shrill neigh in the woods, 
not too far away to be heard, helped him to 
go and find what he was after. In a few 
minutes he came back to the fire, leading 
with him a good-looking brown mare, saddled 
and bridled. 

“ Is got her, Massa Dan,” he chuckled, 
“but I jes’ don’ know whose barn she was 
took out on. I’s got to ride all de way to 
Nashville, now.” 



Andrew Jackson 


47 


That may have meant that he would have 
preferred walking. 

“ Hitch her,” said Dan. “ Then we’d better 
lie down and sleep till sun up.” 

“ Reckon not,” replied Sam, as he knelt 
beside the fallen desperado, searching his 
pockets and removing his belt and weapons. 
“ You’s on’y a boy, yit, or yo’ wouldn’t talk o’ 
loafin’ any too nigh dis yer.” 

“ He’s dead,” said Dan. 

“ Jes’ so,” said Sam, “or yo’ an’ I’d be as 
dead as he is. I’ll git on de mare an’ I wont 
’top dis side o’ Nashville. Yo’ lead yer own 
hoss on a good bit an’ go into de woods. Don’ 
lie dah any too long, nuther. Any man’s a 
fool to git his t’roat cut. Bill Jeckler hed 
frien’s an’ dey was a good deal like him.” 

“ I reckon that’s so,” said Dan. “ I wish 
we could have taken him alive.” 

“Take de debbil! ” exclaimed the black 
man, and he went on to explain, with some 
earnestness, as if excusing himself to all white 
men, that the mountain outlaws were in the 
habit of taking vengeance for a capture, even 
more than for a killing. 



48 


The Errand Boy of 


Then he was in the saddle which Bill Jeck- 
ler would never use again, and he was gal¬ 
loping fast along the Nashville road. Dan 
understood that Sam must get as far as 
possible before broad daylight. A negro, 
mounted on such a horse and carrying such 
weapons, was quite likely to be called to 
account by any party of armed white men 
meeting him. 

“ I reckon,” thought Dan, “ he won’t be in¬ 
terfered with much by any feller that hasn’t 
his rifle with him. Anyhow, there isn’t much 
o’ this night left.” 

There may have been a couple of hours, 
perhaps, if he had carried a watch to mark 
them with, but they were long ones. There 
was no sleep at all in them, even after a good 
hiding and pasturing place had been found, 
a mile or so beyond Indian Spring. Sleep? 
Dan now felt a great deal more like standing 
guard all the while, with his rifle cocked, 
ready for any kind of outlaws, red or white. 
The bay colt took a different view of the 
situation, for the wild blue grass at this place 
was of excellent quality. 



A n drew Ja c ks on 


49 


“ There comes the sun ! ” exclaimed Dan, 
at last, with some enthusiasm. 

It was not that he actually saw any sun, in 
the act of rising, but that a faint tinge of 
yellow light began to show above some tree- 
tops. He had now only a few small frag¬ 
ments of his provisions remaining, and he 
was still a hungry boy after these had dis¬ 
appeared. His horse also would willingly 
have continued grazing, but it was time to 
saddle and mount and get away. 

“ Nashville ! ” shouted Dan, as he went out 
into the road. “ I’ll get there to-day. Hur¬ 
rah for General Jackson ! ” 

Then he quickly tightened his rein, for 
hardly had his shout been uttered before it 
seemed to have called out an answer from 
somebody at no great distance down the 
road. 

“ Somebody else is up early,” thought Dan. 
“ Wonder if it’s a friend of Bill Jeckler. 
Whoever it is, though, I’ll have my rifle 
ready. I don’t see how any of ’em could 
know about him so soon as this.” 

He rode on, somewhat slowly, and the 



50 


The Errand Boy of 


answering halloo came again, nearer, clearer. 
About a minute later Dan saw a tall man, 
standing alone by the roadside, looking at a 
horse. 

“ Store clothes,” muttered Dan. “ Wool 
hat. Carries an umbrella, too. There’s a 
big valise on the horse, behind the saddle. 
I reckon he’s some kind of gentleman. Don’t 
be too sure though. Horse thieves can dress 
well, sometimes.” 

The stranger was indeed dressed very 
well, for that time and place, and it dimly 
occurred to Dan’s mind that there was some¬ 
thing military about him. 

“ Hallo, youngster,” he called out, as Dan 
rode up to him. “ Where did you get that 
horse ? ” 

“ I reckon it isn’t any business o’ yours,” 
sharply responded Dan, as he came to a halt. 
“ He belongs to me. Who are you ? ” 

“ That isn’t any business of yours,” said the 
stranger, but his tone was lower, and there 
was no insolence in his manner. “ I’ll tell 
you, though, my boy. My name’s Brown. 
I’m all the way from Boston, to buy land in 



A ndrew Ja ck s on 


5i 


Tennessee. This brute of mine cast a shoe 
and went lame. He is of no use whatever. 
I’m dismounted.” 

“ I reckon he never was worth a great 
deal,” said Dan, looking the broken-down 
beast all over. “ There’s plenty of land for 
sale, mister, but not a great many horses. 
General Jackson is going to want ’em all for 
his army.” 

“ T didn’t know he had any army yet, to 
want horses for,” said Mr. Brown, a little sar¬ 
castically. “ What’ll you take for that one ? 
I’ve got to get a fresh mount somehow.” 

“ He’s worth more’n you’d want to pay,” 
said Dan. “ I’m taking him to Nashville, to 
sell him. Father said I could get more cash 
for him there than I could anywhere else.” 

“ Now, boy,” said Mr. Brown, “ I know 
exactly how horses are going. You can’t 
tell me anything. I’ll give you a hundred 
dollars, cash down, and put my saddle right 
on. You can have this one, too, into the 
bargain.” 

“ I don’t want him,” said Dan. “ The 
crows can take him, for all o’ me. But I’ll 



52 


The Errand Boy of 


take the hundred. You can put your saddle 
on after you pay me the cash.” 

Down he sprang, rifle in hand, and stood 
somewhat watchfully at the head of his bay 
colt. The glitter in his eyes was a little 
brighter than usual, moreover, for here was the 
sale and the money he had been hoping for. 
It was a tremendously sudden surprise, but 
he did not feel like being trifled with, for all 
that. One of the swift thoughts in his mind 
was: “ If he’s a mountain outlaw and a horse 
thief, I may have to shoot him. I’m ready.” 

Mr. Brown, whoever or whatever he might 
be, seemed to understand the kind of boy he 
was dealing with. The price, too, was a 
pretty good one, as horses were going that 
season, and he knew that hard money can 
settle a great many things. He went at once 
and took down the valise from behind the 
saddle. He opened it and lifted out a small 
bag, but he did not for a moment lose his 
hold upon a handsome double-barrelled shot¬ 
gun that he was armed with. The bag was 
heavy with coins and he took out a handful 
of them. 




Dan sells his horse 










A ndrew J a c k s on 


53 


“ Gold half eagles, ninety-five dollars, sil¬ 
ver, five dollars,” he said, as he counted the 
money and handed it over. 

“ It’s all right,” said Dan, after he also had 
counted it. “ But four of the half eagles are 
English sovereigns. I know ’em. They’ll 
pass for five dollars apiece, though, any¬ 
where around here.” 

“We have to take what we can get, nowa¬ 
days,” said Mr. Brown. “All the silver I’ve 
seen down here is either Mexican or Spanish. 
This country had better try to find a silver 
mine, somewhere, and some gold mines. 
What did you say about Jackson’s army? 
He can’t raise one.” 

“ Can’t he ? ” said Dan. “ Well, now, just 
you wait and see about that. All our men 
aren’t dead yet.” 

“My boy,” responded Mr. Brown, “his old 
regiments were used up in his Creek cam¬ 
paign. They’ve all gone home to take a rest. 
What’s more, the Tennessee militia won’t care 
to go down to the Gulf and be knocked over 
by British regular troops.” 

Dan listened, and his eyes were beginning 



54 


The Errand Boy of 


to flash angrily. The money was in his 
pockets, now, and Mr. Brown had taken the 
bridle of the bay. 

“ Mister Brown,” said Dan, “ I reckon 
you’d better not let off much of that kind of 
talk around here. Say, now! If you were 
in a red sojer coat, at a hundred yards, 
wouldn’t a slug from this rifle drop ye ? I 
can take the head off a squirrel in a tree- 
top.” 

The stranger’s cheeks reddened and he 
bit his lip, as if to keep himself from saying 
something that was close behind it. He 
made no immediate reply, however, and 
busied himself with a rapid transfer of his 
saddle, bridle, and valise to his new pur¬ 
chase. 

Dan watched him, curiously, but could not 
help, at the same time, feeling of the entirely 
unexpected coins which he had stowed away 
in the pockets of his jeans shirt, under the 
protection of his buckskin. 

“ That’s a splendid saddle,” he was think¬ 
ing, when Mr. Brown sprang into it, with the 
ease of a practised horseman, “ but he’ll get 



Andrew Jackson 


55 


into trouble at Nashville, if he talks in that 
way about Tennessee militia and the British. 
I wonder where he picked up any English 
money. He wears spurs too.” 

A touch of Mr. Brown’s heel sent off the 
bay with a startled spring, and in a moment 
Dan was alone, preparing to make the rest 
of his way to Nashville on foot. Of course, 
his first business was to examine the animal 
left behind him by the gentlemanly but unpa¬ 
triotic land speculator from Boston. It was 
a gray, of medium size, and Dan decided 
that it might have been a pretty good one, 
before being so badly lamed. 

“ There was a pebble got stuck in his off 
hind foot, I reckon,” he said at last. “ That 
fellow Brown didn’t get it out soon enough. 
I don’t know how bad the lameness is. He 
may get over it, after a while. I’ll lead 
him along, slowly, anyhow, and leave him 
at a house, to be sent home to father. Oh, 
but wouldn’t I like to see them all, this 
morning! ” 



56 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER IV 

SHOOTING AT A MARK 

BOUT half a mile above what were the 



il outskirts of the young and thriving 
town of Nashville, and on the bank of the 
Cumberland River, there was a broad, grassy 
level, without any fence. It had not been 
made a public park of, or otherwise set apart 
for popular uses, except for the one reason 
that it was a kind of no-man’s-land, all the 
titles to it being tangled in a maze of law¬ 
suits. Here, therefore, the local militia came 
for parade and drill. Here, now and then, 
were the horse races that the Tennesseeans 
delighted in, and here had been the tempo¬ 
rary camp of more than one brave regiment 
of volunteers, on their way to deadly strug¬ 
gles with the red men of the woods. 

There was a crowd assembled on the pa¬ 
rade ground, not very long after Dan and 
Black Sam had their midnight adventure at 



Andrew Jackson 


57 


Indian Spring. The bank of the river, for 
a considerable length, had been left unoccu¬ 
pied, for in the middle of the open space on 
this side was a framework of timbers, sus¬ 
taining a plank target, six feet square. In 
the middle of this, again, was suspended a 
smooth board “ mark,” about two feet square. 
Upon this was traced a black ring, a foot in 
diameter, around the chalked “ white ” of the 
target, and the very centre was a red spot of 
the size of a dollar. 

During a little over two hours, after the 
usual Nashville breakfast time, there had 
been heard from this direction an almost 
continuous cracking of rifles, and the spirit- 
stirring sounds had attracted every man and 
boy who could get away from what he was 
doing, — or not doing. 

There were marks on the outside planks 
which might indicate that not all the riflemen 
had been experts, but the central pad had 
been shot all to splinters and renewed several 
times. A fresh one had now been put on 
for a trial of skill which was arousing espe¬ 
cial interest. 



58 


The Errand Boy of 


“ The best man’ll git a splendid pair o’ 
belt pistols,” remarked a man who was 
standing near the shooting line, sixty yards 
from the target. 

“ Wal, ye-es,” said another. “ It’s to be 
fifteen shots, at a dollar each, and I reckon 
the pistols ain’t wuth but ten.” 

“Yes, they are,” replied the first speaker. 
“ They’re as good as new, every bit. But 
you needn’t try for ’em, yourself. Not agin’ 
them fellers that’s puttin’ in.” 

One after another, a number of well-known 
good shots were paying their dollars, and 
there would have been more offerings, per¬ 
haps, if some of the experts present had 
not been out of silver. When the required 
number was understood to have been made 
up, the crowd fell back behind a rope bar¬ 
rier, leaving the contestants by themselves, 
at the line. 

They were all full-grown men, apparently, 
with one exception, and no objection to him 
had been made, so long as he was able to 
pay his dollar. It was also entirely regular 
that a big black man, probably belonging 



Andrew Jackson 


59 


to him, should walk forward to speak to 
him, as he stood in his place at one end 
of the line, ready to draw cuts with the 
rest for his turn to shoot. 

“ Massa Dan, I seen yo’ pay in. Did yo’ sell 
yer hoss ? I done got my rewahd foh Jeckler, 
but the critter he was on belonged to a feller 
yer in Nashville. He done give me ten.” 

“ Sam,” whispered back Dan, “ I got a 
hundred. I say, now, do you just keep your 
eye out for a Boston chap that says his 
name is Brown. He’s a land buyer. ’Pears 
to me he’ll bear watching.” 

“ Massa Dan,” said Sam, “ I done seen 
that feller, a’ready. Don’t like him, nuther. 
I’ll jes’ hunt him up. But dey all want to 
keep it still ’bout Bill Jeckler, jest now.” 

A hat full of clipped straws was at that 
moment held before Dan, and he carelessly 
took out one of them. 

“ Hullo, boy! ” exclaimed the hat-holder. 
“ That was the last o’ the luck straws. The 
rest of ’em don’t count. You’ve got the 
shortest. It’ll be your first shot. Reckon 
you’ve lost your dollar.” 



6o 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Massa Dan ! ” said Black Sam, excitedly, 
“jes’ do you plum centre! Call it a squirrel 
head, up a tree.” 

“Git back, you black wolf!” commanded 
the hat-holder. “ Git out! Who’s nigger 
are you ? ” 

“ All right, massa,” said Sam. “ I’s heah 
wid young Cap’n Martin. He’s moah a 
gen’leman dan you is.” 

Sam stepped quickly away, while he was 
speaking, but his reply had not been given 
in a whisper, and a man on horseback, 
twenty yards away, rode a little nearer and 
leaned forward in the saddle. Other men, 
mounted or on foot, got out of his way 
respectfully, and he seemed to divide public 
interest with even the target. He was tall, 
thin, sallow, and when he raised the dingy 
old chapeau which completed his faded uni¬ 
form he uncovered a dense crop of stiff gray 
hair. He wore no epaulettes, for one of 
General Jackson’s shoulders had been too 
tender for such a weight ever since his fight, 
years ago, with Thomas H. Benton. 

“ Captain John Martin’s son,” he muttered, 



A 7 i dr ew Ja c k s 071 


61 

fixing his piercing eyes upon the uncon¬ 
scious Dan. “ I wish I could have five 
thousand men like his father with me at 
New Orleans. Instead of that, I must take 
whatever materials I can get.” 

The conditions of the match were loudly 
proclaimed, and Dan stepped forward to the 
line. As he did so, his sunburnt face grew 
almost pale, his mouth shut tightly, and his 
lithe frame seemed to be hardening. Up 
came his long rifle, steadily, slowly, and it 
seemed to have but just reached a level 
when he drew the trigger. There were 
markers near the target, and they sprang 
toward it as the rifle cracked. 

“ Plumb centre! ” shouted one of them, 
and a storm of cheers drowned the further 
assertions, “ nobody can beat that! ” 

The fourteen others were to have their 
chances, nevertheless, and Dan walked back 
to reload. 

“ Massa Dan ! ” he heard. “ Come dis way, 
suah. Gin’ral Jackson wants to see ye.” 

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed Dan, and a blaze of red 
which his success and the cheering had 



62 


The Errand Boy of 


brought into his face flitted out of it. In 
its place followed a scared and anxious look, 
as if something awful were about to happen 
to him. He was really a courageous young 
fellow, however, for he bravely followed Black 
Sam, and stood erect in front of the greatest 
man that he knew anything about. 

“ Dan Martin,” said the general, with a 
genial, winning smile, “how is your father’s 
wound getting on ? ” 

“ It’s curing, sir, but he’s too lame to 
come,” stammered Dan. “ He says I’m to 
take his place in your new army. I can 
shoot, — if you’ll take me.” 

“ Take you ? ” almost laughed the general. 
“You’ll do! Hurrah for our boys! Fellow- 
citizens, we are going to beat the British 
army with the boys of Tennessee and Ken¬ 
tucky ! ” 

It may be that the storm of ringing cheers 
which answered him were in part responsible 
for the half badness of the next two shots 
fired, but the fourth was another centre shot, 
as good as Dan’s. 

The marksmen who now followed were 






1 w 

*■' 'u^af 


% 

9,1 T1 Mi 

«./»#«F >L j 

[t 

' M* ■!# 

, Jj 


“You'/l do," said General Jackson 


























* 










Andrew Jackson 


63 


disposed to be exceedingly deliberate. There 
were also discussions and measurements at 
the target, and there were intervals between 
shots, so that General Jackson was able to 
ask further questions, not only about Cap¬ 
tain Martin, but concerning a number of 
his neighbors. It was said of him that he 
knew every man in Tennessee and just 
what each man was good for. His last ques¬ 
tion was: — 

“ Dan, how many colored men like your 
Sam can you bring along? I want every 
one of ’em.” 

“ There ain’t many like him — ” began 
Dan, but he was interrupted. 

“ Massa Gin’ral! ” shouted Sam, himself, 
with his very widest and most ferocious 
grin, “ mought I come ’long wid Massa 
Dan? Golly! Whoop! I kin shoot sojers!” 

“Come?” echoed the general. “Well, if 
I’m to save New Orleans, I mustn’t turn 
away the best soldiers I can find. Sam, 
you stick to Dan, till I know what I’m go¬ 
ing to do with him.” 

“ Massa Gin’ral, I’s boun’ to stick,” re- 



64 


The Errand Boy of 


sponded Sam, in fierce exultation, “but 
heah’s jes’ one moah. Wat ye gwine to do 
wid him ? I know him. It’s ole Ki-a-wok. 
He’s Red Shirt Joe, up heah, an’ he’s a 
bohn debbil Seminole.” 

A pace behind the negro, indeed, stood 
a shape as remarkable as his own. From 
under a neatly made straw hat hung masses 
of straight black hair, on either side of a 
beardless, deeply wrinkled, copper-colored 
face. Beady, black, sunken eyes, a hawk 
nose, a retreating chin and forehead, made 
up a countenance more savage, more cruel 
in expression, more absolutely devilish, than 
even that of Black Sam. His attire, never¬ 
theless, was somewhat in keeping with the 
jaunty appearance of his new straw hat. He 
wore a blazing red shirt, clean buckskin leg¬ 
gings with ample fringes, and elegant bead- 
embroidered moccasins. H is wide, new leather 
belt sustained a tomahawk and sheath knife, 
and he carried a handsome silver-mounted 
rifle. On his bosom were several medals, but 
Black Sam remarked aloud : — 

“ Debbil Seminole wah chief make be- 



Andrew Jackson 


65 


lieb peace. No wah-paint. No ’calp-lock 
on he legs.” 

General Jackson sat motionless on his 
horse while the Indian stepped forward, but 
he then leaned to hold out a hand and 
say: — 

“ How! Ki-a-wok is a great chief. Bad 
man. What is he here for ? ” 

“ How! Ugh ! ” grunted the red man, as 
he took the proffered hand. “ Ki-a-wok 
good man now. Jackson go kill heap Red 
Stick Creek for Seminole. Red Shirt Joe 
come go along on war-path. Kill heap red¬ 
coat. Kill!— Now! Ugh! Tell if Jack¬ 
son’s men kill ole Crooked Knife ? ” 

“ No,” said the general, appearing to 
know something of the celebrated Creek 
warrior mentioned. “ He got away. He 
and all his gang are with the British. Why 
did you go with Tecumseh ? ” 

“ Ki-a-wok want heap fight,” stolidly re¬ 
sponded the Seminole. “Want kill. Tecum¬ 
seh dead. Joe go home. Hear ’bout Jackson. 
Hear he kill heap Red Stick Creek. Come 
see him. Go to New Orleans. Heap more 



66 


The Errand Boy of 


fight. What Jackson say Seminole chief? 
Ugh! ” 

“ Come right along, you bloodthirsty old 
murderer,” exclaimed the general. “You’re 
a recruit worth having. I must take all that 
come, just now. Keep with Sam and Dan 
and come and see me at headquarters.” 

“ Good ! ” said the Seminole, with a cruel 
smile flitting across his face. “Ugh! Ki- 
a-wok want ’calp ! ” 

“ That’s all you do want,” growled the 
general. “You’re a human tiger. Hullo, 
Hutton, what is it ? Who’s that ? ” 

A very young-looking man in the uniform 
of a captain on the general’s own staff had 
approached on the other side of his com¬ 
mander’s horse, and with him was a short, 
thin, black haired man, rigged in a hand¬ 
some suit of fine twilled linen. He wore a 
Panama hat, a diamond pin, and there were 
rings on his fingers and in his ears. To an 
experienced observer, however, and he was 
now before one, not all his dandy outfit 
could save him from conveying an impres¬ 
sion that he was a seaman. For instance, 



Andrew Jackson 


67 


his hands were tar-stained in perfect accord¬ 
ance with the swaggering sailor’s roll in his 
gait. He seemed to be unarmed, and he 
bowed not only respectfully, but with per¬ 
fect self-possession, when the general turned 
and glanced over him, from head to foot. 

Captain Hutton had pressed forward near 
enough to be unheard by anybody else, when 
he said, under his breath : — 

“ Pierre Chanon, he reports himself. Spe¬ 
cial messenger from Jean Lafitte. Something 
about Barataria.” 

“ Oh! The pirates,” growled back the 
general. “ I half expected to hear from 
them. Bring him to headquarters. What 
about that British spy ? ” 

“ Found him,” said Captain Hutton. “ He’s 
in Nashville now. What are we to do with 
him ? ” 

“ Do ? Why, nothing at all,” replied the gen¬ 
eral. “ Let him learn all he wants to know 
and let him go away. I wish I could send 
Pakenham full accounts of the way things 
here are looking to British eyes just now. 
I’d furnish the spies myself and pay ’em too.” 



68 


The Errand Boy of 


Captain Hutton laughed, but could not 
say any more just then, for fear of being 
overheard ; and he turned away, taking Pierre 
Chanon with him. 

The next moment a loud voice from the 
shooting line was announcing the result of 
the first trial of skill. No less than four 
out of the fifteen shots had struck the centre, 
and all the others were pretty good ones. 
It was necessary, therefore, that the first 
quartette should try again, and a fresh mark 
was put in place upon the target. 

“ Shoot close now, Massa Dan,” said 
Black Sam. “ Don’t yo’ miss ! ” 

General Jackson had listened to the re¬ 
port of the markers with evident interest, 
and he said to himself, in a voice that was 
husky, as if with suppressed wrath : — 

“ This is only sixty yards. Very short 
range. I must let the British come close 
up. Every ball sent to-day would have 
brought down a man. I must remember 
sixty yards at New Orleans.” 

Again cut straws were drawn, and this 
time Dan Martin was at the end of the list 



A n dr ew J a c k s on 


69 


instead of at the beginning. The general 
excitement was increasing every minute, and 
some of it may have got into the nerves of 
the first man to fire, for the markers at the 
target called out: — 

“ One inch to the left! ” 

The second man drew his bead with de¬ 
liberate care, sighting again and again before 
he pulled the trigger. 

“ Inch to the right! ” came back from the 
target. “ Them two shots is tied.” 

The third stepped forward and his bullet 
went instantly, whether or not there was 
anything the matter with him. 

“ Half inch below! ” was announced, and a 
friend of the marksman sang out exultantly: — 
“ Bully ! You’ve won the pistols.” 

“ Jest you wait,” he quietly responded. “ I 
know those Martins. I sarved with the 
captain. Dan’s chance is good yet.” 

Dan stepped forward, and, somehow, his 
entire body seemed to be aware that General 
Jackson was watching him. 

He stood still, not raising his rifle, until 
a queer tingle in his fingers had passed 



7 o 


The Errand Boy of 


away. Then he was once more all hickory 
and whipcord. He must have had the eye 
of a telescope, too, for he said to himself: — 
“ I can see the other bullet spots. I’ll 
shoot at the one below the red — ” 

His rifle arose, then, with a swift, regular 
motion. It cracked, and in a few seconds 
more a tumultuous roar of cheering followed 
the markers’ announcement: — 

“ Plumb centre agin ! He’s won it! ” 

The loudest yell sent up came from Black 
Sam, but a short, fierce whoop burst from 
the lips of Red Shirt Joe, or Ki-a-wok, 
whichever name he was to go by. He even 
came forward and gravely shook hands with 
Dan, remarking: — 

“ Young chief. Joe know he father. Boy 
kill heap, some day. Ugh ! ” 

General Jackson must have had what might 
be called business reasons for watching that 
last shot so closely. 

“ I think I want that boy,” he remarked. 
“ He’d be true as steel. He will do. His 
nigger, there, is just the right one to send 
with him. Captain Hutton, these, and the 



Andrew Jackson 


7 1 


Seminole. They must go to Barataria with¬ 
out anybody knowing that I sent them. That 
pirate’s nest on Grand Terre Island may be¬ 
come the key to New Orleans, for all I know.” 

His preparations for his coming fight, there¬ 
fore, were making in various ways. He was 
even studying already the field of his army 
operations, and he was eager to seize and hold 
any point of possible advantage. 

Captain Hutton came to speak with Dan, 
and made arrangements for meeting him 
again that very evening. After that, he and 
Pierre Chanon departed. All the while, how¬ 
ever, a strange sort of alliance had seemed to 
grow up between Black Sam and the Semi¬ 
nole. They did not wait for Dan or anybody 
else, now, but walked away together, not utter¬ 
ing a word until they were out of the crowd. 
Then, without turning his head or pausing 
in his walk, the red man asked of the black: — 

“What Sam here for? Kill? Ugh! Run 
away ? ” 

“ No ! ” said Sam. “ Didn’t kill him. Hab 
a fight, dough. Gwine down to New Orleans 
wid Massa Dan an’ Gin’ral Jackson. Fight 



72 


The Errand Boy of 


de British. W’at about ole Seminole debbil ? 
W’ot’d Gin’ral Harrison say, s’pose he know 
yo’ are heah ? ” 

“ Ugh ! ” said his companion. “ Ki-a-wok 
no want Harrison. Tecumseh great chief. 
Kill for him. He dead now. No want 
Proctor. Heap gone away. Come see Jack- 
son. Big chief he. Kill heap Red Stick 
Creek for Ki-a-wok.” 

To either his own mind or Sam’s, that 
explanation was perfectly plain. So it would 
have been, no doubt, to either of those expe¬ 
rienced Indian fighters, William Henry Harri¬ 
son or Andrew Jackson. The Seminole had 
no prejudices, as between one white nation 
and another. At the same time, his whole 
idea of earthly happiness, success, glory, was 
in the taking of as many other human lives 
as he could, scalps, too, if he could get them, 
with only a limited inquiry into whatever rea¬ 
sons he might give himself for the killing 
done. All that his inherited morals called 
for was a declaration of a war-path, some¬ 
where, and an opportunity for choosing his 
own side of the quarrel. 



Andrew Jackson 


73 


Black Sam was beginning to say something 
about Florida and former times which might 
have thrown some light upon his relations 
with the Seminole warrior, when a man on 
horseback drew rein near them, and in¬ 
quired : — 

“ Hey, there, you nigger! Can you tell me 
where General Jackson is?” 

“ Reckon I kin, sah,” said Sam. “ He’s out 
yondah, in de town, a min’in’ his own biz. 
How is yo’ likin’ dat ar’ Martin colt you’s on ? 
Reckon he’s wuf all yo’ gin foh him.” 

“ Know him, do you ? ” exclaimed the 
stranger. “You shut up about that. What 
I want is the general.” 

“ Ugh ! ” sharply interrupted the Seminole. 
“ How Major Upson? ” 

An astonished oath sprang from the lips 
of the asserted Mr. Brown and his face turned 
pale for a moment. 

“You here?” he said, “you red serpent! 
— I’m not in the army any more. I’m down 
here buying land.” 

“ Ugh ! ” said the red man. “ Good ! Up¬ 
son take land. Play spy. Lose hair. Ole 



74 


The Errand Boy of 


Jackson hang him on tree. Got good hoss? 
Go redcoat camp. Ride heap ! Kill hoss! 
Jump!” 

“ I don’t know but what you’re right about 
that,” dolefully responded the discovered spy. 
“It’s pretty close quarters for me.— I say, 
you served under General Proctor and Te- 
cumseh. You ought not to betray me.” 

“Ugh! No!” said the Indian. “Upson 
get away. Go now! ” 

Here, evidently, was a point of honor on 
the war-path concerning which he had no 
question. He might even be admiring the 
cunning and courage of the British brave who 
had ventured in so far among his enemies. 
Black Sam, however, was under no such 
obligations, and the rifle in his hand was 
quickly rising when Red Shirt Joe put a firm 
hand upon it. 

“’Top!” he said. “No shoot. No take 
pris’ner. Upson ride away. Sam no sojer 
now. No on war-path. Ki-a-wok go tell ole 
Jackson, by an’ by. Ugh!” 

He motioned with his other hand to his 
British acquaintance, and Major Upson, if 



Andrew Jackson 


75 


that were indeed his true rank and name, 
galloped swiftly away. 

“ I’s gwine to see Gin’ral Jackson ’bout dis 
myse’f!” roared Sam, angrily. “Yo’ort to 
ha’ let me take him.” 

“No!” said the Seminole. “He no red 
coat on. No war-paint. Say buy land. Go 
home. Tecumseh dead. Proctor heap gone. 
No want Upson ’calp.” 

This time Black Sam could not at all 
understand his red friend’s line of argument, 
but he did not know everything. The truth 
was that the Seminole’s quick ears had caught 
part of General Jackson’s reply to his aide- 
de-camp. 

Indian cunning could heartily approve the 
laying of anything in the nature of a trap, over 
and above his other ideas concerning Upson’s 
undertaking. Of course, however, he readily 
consented to go with Black Sam in search of 
the general, to deliver the superfluous infor¬ 
mation that a British officer had been discov¬ 
ered, wandering around in Tennessee as a 
land speculator from the patriotic city of 
Boston. 



76 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER V 

GENERAL JACKSON’S MESSENGERS 

I T is quite probable that the general pub¬ 
lic did not know as well as did Andrew 
Jackson that the British military command¬ 
ers, north and south, were taking every 
means in their power for ascertaining the 
exact state of affairs among the settlers of 
the Mississippi Valley. Not to have done 
so would have been an impossible oversight 
on their part, for they were risking a great 
deal upon their New Orleans expedition. 
It was afterward reported to have cost the 
British treasury, in preparation alone, with¬ 
out counting final losses, over five millions 
of dollars. 

As for Dan Martin, at the close of the 
target practice, he found himself drifted away 
to the farther side of the parade ground. 
Here he was surrounded by admiring rifle¬ 
men, some of whom were old friends of his 



Andrew Jackson 


77 


father, and also by personal evidence that 
there were a great many boys in Nashville, 
every one of them brimming with warlike 
spirit and ready to carry a rifle against all 
the armies of Europe. Dan tried hard to 
keep from looking as proud as he felt, but 
his eyes betrayed him a little. It was really 
a great thing that he had done, for a boy of 
his age, and the pistols were really a better 
pair than he was likely to have obtained in 
any other way. With them came a pair of 
bullet-moulds and a pouch that was already 
half full of rounded lead. 

“ They’re big bore,” he said to himself. 
“ Those balls’ll weigh nigh to an ounce 
apiece. Don’t I wish I could show ’em to 
father and mother, and to Jim and the girls? 
What I want next, though, is a good dinner, 
and then I’ll go and watch ’round till I find 
what the general’s going to do with me. I 
like Captain Hutton, anyhow. I can get 
along with him.” 

He had no idea whatever of how much he 
had* really won, with his pistols and bullet- 
moulds. He may not have known what 



78 


The Errand Boy of 


nerves were, or how valuable, for dangerous 
service, is the not any too plentiful quality 
described as “ nerve.” That was what he 
had been displaying at the shooting line, and 
it was a grand addition to all his patriotism. 

The headquarters of General Jackson were 
in a two-storied frame house, near the middle 
of the town. There were several rooms on 
the ground floor of this house, and in the 
largest of these he sat that evening, reading 
despatches and conversing with his officers 
and other friends, as they came and went. 

In front of the house were picketed a 
number of horses, and a brace of sentries 
walked slowly up and down, ready to pre¬ 
vent intrusion or to announce any desirable 
arrivals. Such of these as could not at once 
be admitted to the general’s presence were 
temporarily kept in waiting in the other 
rooms. 

In one of these, just after supper time, sat 
Dan Martin, with Ki-a-wok and Black Sam, 
and neither of them wore a very patient 
expression on his face. Dan, for his part, 
seemed to be watching the door into the 



Andrew Jackson 


79 


general’s room, rifle in hand, very much as 
if he were prepared to shoot at whoever 
might come through. Black Sam was not 
sitting at all, for he had preferred to sprawl 
at full length on the floor, grinning fero¬ 
ciously at the windows, the ceiling, at every 
article of furniture in its turn, while he 
fingered the haft of his long file-knife in a 
way that indicated a strong disposition to 
pull it out of the sheath. 

The Seminole chief sat as if he had been 
turned into bronze, but there was an inde¬ 
scribable fierceness in his eyes, and his tom¬ 
ahawk lay in his lap. Beyond a doubt, he 
was either absorbed by or filled with the 
consciousness that he was just at the outset 
of a tremendous war-path, with a fine pros¬ 
pect for killing. 

In the other room, at one side of the table 
at which General Jackson was examining 
papers and giving orders, sat his aide-de- 
camp, Captain Hutton, and Pierre Chanon, 
the ambassador from Jean Lafitte’s strong¬ 
hold of freebooters at Grand Terre Island, 
on Barataria Bay, below New Orleans. 



8 o 


The Errand Boy of 


A large, stern-looking officer at the gen¬ 
eral’s right had been asking a number of 
questions of Chanon, and at the end of 
these General Jackson said to him: — 
“General Coffee, my friend, that will do. 
We know now about all he has to tell us, 
and there is only one answer to be made. 
Captain Hutton, you and a party will go 
back with Chanon. You will boat it down 
the Cumberland to the Ohio, and then take 
a Mississippi flatboat down to New Orleans. 
You will get there long before I do, and you 
will be ready to report when I come, for 
your first errand will be to Barataria. Now, 
Chanon, I will not send anything in writing 
to Jean Lafitte. Captain Hutton will have 
something to show him. You, yourself, may 
say to him from me, and you may say it to 
all the rest of his crew, if he wishes you 
to do so, — just this. The British mean to 
clean out Grand Terre Island and get pos¬ 
session of that and of Barataria Bay. What¬ 
ever they may promise beforehand, they will 
capture the Lafittes and their men, if they 
can, and they will hang every one of them 



Andrew Jacks on 


8i 

at the yard arm as pirates, within twenty- 
four hours after taking them. If the British 
themselves do not break up that buccaneer’s 
nest, the United States must and will. If 
nobody else does it, I shall do it myself. 
There is going to be an end of it, and Jean 
Lafitte is a fool if he can’t see it. Now! 
Any property that the Lafittes can move 
away will be safer in New Orleans than it 
will be anywhere else.” 

“ Some gone to sea,” said Chanon. “ No 
more sheep sail out now. No safe. Some 
property go up bayou. Some put away in 
swamp. Bon ! ” 

“ I suppose that may be so,” said the gen¬ 
eral, quietly. “He may lose a good deal of 
that. New Orleans is better. The Lafittes 
have warehouses there. I can keep Gover¬ 
nor Claiborne’s hands, or any other man’s 
hands, away from all of you, as soon as you 
belong to the forces under my command. 
You will all be entirely safe, after you have 
helped me beat off the British, and you will 
save your own necks.” 

The Frenchman’s not uncomely face light- 



82 


The Errand Boy of 


ened with a shrewd smile as he listened, and 
he bowed respectfully. 

“ Very goot, Monsieur le General,” he 
responded. “ I tell him. I go. But I say 
one t’ing more. Very mosh Barataria mer¬ 
chandise haf been put in New Orleans now. 
Ver’ goot leetle place. Dose British must 
take de ceety before dey hang Jean Lafitte 
and Pierre Chanon. I understand ver’ well, 
by gar!” 

A curious man was this Chanon, and an 
expert might have detected defects in his 
broken French-English. He arose to go out, 
and Captain Hutton said to him: — 

“ Wait for me, Chanon. I’ll be with you 
in a few minutes.” 

“ Bring in Dan Martin and his friends,” 
said the general. “ Coffee, I’ll show you 
three new specimens. We are getting all 
sorts of reenforcements.” 

“We need ’em all,” laughed the veteran 
soldier who had fought more battles with 
Indians than had even General Jackson him¬ 
self. “ But what can you do with a lot of 
pirates ? ” 



A ndrew Ja cks on 


83 


“ Just what I said,” replied the general. 
“ We couldn’t convict them of piracy, if we 
should try. We did try once, and they 
slipped through the law. They have com¬ 
missions and letters of marque, as lawful 
privateers, from the Spanish republics of 
South America. That is what they claim to 
be,—and slave traders and smugglers. Ba- 
rataria must be wiped out, but, first of all, 
the British mustn’t have it.” 

“ What could they do with it ? ” asked 
Coffee. 

“Well,” said the general, slowly, “I don’t 
know those bayous as well as I wish I did, 
but the Lafittes land cargoes up the Missis¬ 
sippi. What if the British held Grand Terre 
and were piloted by the pirates to establish 
a thousand men, with cannon, on the river 
bank, above New Orleans? It would cost 
us something to dislodge them. There are 
other points too. I qin use all the pirates.” 

“ Good,” said Coffee, “ if you can bag ’em. 
Here comes Hutton.” 

The aide-de-camp came in without speak¬ 
ing, and once more Ki-a-wok came forward 



8 4 


The Errand Boy of 


and offered a hand to the general, as if he 
himself were another war chief of equal rank 
and importance. 

“How!” he said. “What Jackson do 
now ? ” 

“ How! ” replied the general, in a friendly 
manner. “ War-path, chief. I’m sending you 
on a big scout. You get killed maybe.” 

“ Ugh! good! ” grunted the Seminole, a 
look of satisfaction dawning in his face. 
“Joe kill too. Go right along.” 

His English was better than that of most 
red men, for he was said to have passed 
years of his boyhood as a prisoner, half a 
slave, among the white settlers of northern 
Georgia. He now stepped aside, and the 
general turned to Dan. 

“You have come to take your father’s 
place, have you ? ” he said, in the cordial, 
winning way which had so much to do 
with his great personal popularity. “You 
can’t quite do that, my boy. He’s one of 
the best men that ever carried a rifle. But 
I’m glad to have such boys as you are. 
Now, on his account and your own, I can’t 



Andrew Jackson 


85 


let you stay in Nashville. Bill Jeckler’s 
body was found by his friends, at the spring 
where you and Sam camped. Sam brought 
in the horse Bill was known to have ridden. 
You were reported, too, just this side of your 
camp, next morning. The mountain outlaw 
gang takes revenge. You and Sam might get 
a shot from behind a bush, — or a stab in the 
dark. Are you ready to go on a long trip ? ” 

“ Reckon we is, Massa Gin’ral,” broke in 
the black man, grinning horribly. “ Jes’ 
w’at we kem foh. Whar kin we git some 
hosses ? ” 

“ I sold mine,” said Dan, quickly, “ and 
the man that bought him didn’t come from 
Boston. He’s English, and he’s a kind of 
spy — ” 

“Dan!” interrupted the general. “You 
and all of them must keep silence about that. 
Not one word to anybody. Every British 
spy that comes is only one more messenger 
from me to Pakenham. I wouldn’t stop 
one of ’em for anything. But you won’t 
need horses. You are going to New Or¬ 
leans by the river, with Captain Hutton. 



86 


The Errand Boy of 


He will give you your orders. Red Shirt 
Joe, you and Black Sam are to go with Dan 
and the captain.” 

“ Ugh ! ” said the Seminole. “No trail in 
water. All down ribber. No heap paddle. 
Ki-a-wok know New Orleans. Know La- 
fitte. Know Chanon. Know Barataria.” 

“ I declare! ” exclaimed General Coffee. 
“ Where haven’t you been ! I believe you’ve 
hunted scalps farther than any other red¬ 
skin I ever heard of! From the everglades 
of Florida and from the Gulf of Mexico, 
away up into Canada with Tecumseh!” 

“ Ugh! ” said the Seminole, as he and his 
friends went out. “ Kill heap ! ” 

Black Sam had not been so far, probably, 
but he had done very well as a traveller and 
campaigner, and he was known to be a good 
boat hand. Captain Hutton’s party, there¬ 
fore, was made up with only one raw volun¬ 
teer in it. That one, however, was loaded 
down with a most tremendous weight of 
reverence when he bowed himself out of that 
room. Well he might be, for the man who 
had been talking to him so kindly was some- 



Andrew Jackson 


8 7 


thing more than the mere general of an army. 
Without him there was no army and would 
not be any. It was almost true to say of 
him that he was himself the Southwestern 
army of the terribly imperilled United 
States. 

Other visitors were waiting their turn. 
Few of them were in any kind of uniform, 
but almost all of them were really military 
men. They were prominent citizens of 
Tennessee and Kentucky, who had come, 
for the greater part, to tell their commander 
how many men, or how few, they believed 
they could bring him. 

“Men! men!” groaned General Jackson, 
half despairingly, after listening to several 
discouraging reports. “ What we need is 
men! I will take every boy that can carry 
a rifle. I will issue a proclamation calling 
on all the free colored men to volunteer for 
the defence of their country;” 

He did that very thing shortly afterward, 
and some of the best fighting at New Or¬ 
leans was done by American soldiers of 
African parentage. 



88 


The Errand Boy of 


Dan Martin would have been deeply in¬ 
terested in other conversations which took 
place that evening, if he could have been 
near enough to listen. One of these was 
held in front of a rude log stable behind a 
cabin on the road by which he had come 
to Nashville. A man and a woman stood 
here in the moonlight, looking at a gray 
horse whose hind feet the man had been 
examining. 

“ Sally,” he said, “ it’s gettin’ easier for him 
to step on. I reckon he’ll be all right in a 
week or so. Tell ye what, that there hoss 
is goin’ to be as good as ever. Then I’ll 
hev him shod. One o’ these days, though, 
I must git him to Cap’n Martin’s.” 

“ That’ll be honest,” she remarked. “ Of 
course you will, but jest along now we’re 
goin’ to need one more hoss and Cap’n Mar¬ 
tin doesn’t. That critter’s got to do some 
work, to pay for his keep and shoein’.” 

“ Reckon he must,” said her husband. 
“ Cap’n Martin wouldn’t object to that. 
But I wish’t I knowed what them fellers 
was after yesterday. They had too many 



Andrew Jackson 


89 


questions to ask, to suit me. I wish I hadn’t 
let out that it was Dan Martin that left this 
critter here.” 

“Jest so,” she said, “I took it that they 
weren’t any friends o’ his’n. ’Pears like I 
could see it. But they can’t do him no 
harm, ’at I can see, while he’s away in Gin- 
eral Jackson’s army.” 

“ Sally,” he responded, with energy, “ that’s 
so, but it’s an awful pity I can’t be with Jack- 
son, this time.” 

“You can’t,” she said. “You was with 
him nigh a hull year. You was up north 
with Harrison, awhile. Now, you owe some¬ 
thing to me an’ the children.” 

“ So I do,” he said, “ but I wish’t we had 
some grown-up boys to go in my place.” 

That was the spirit of the people all over 
the Western country. It was growing in 
fervor daily, as the news went on from 
house to house and from hamlet to hamlet 
that the great British fleet and army were 
actually on their way to change American 
free citizens into subjects of the king of 
England. 



90 


The Errand Boy of 


Another of the interesting conversations 
took place near the southerly end of the 
main street of Nashville. A man here was 
unhitching a large bay horse, saddled and 
bridled and carrying a valise behind the 
saddle, when he was hailed by four other 
men, on foot. They carried rifles, but their 
greeting was entirely peaceable. 

“Stranger , 55 said one of them, “jest wait a 
bit, please. I’d like you to tell me who sold 
you that thar hoss and whereabouts it was 
you met him.” 

“ I bought him fair and square,” was re¬ 
plied steadily, as the unhitching was com¬ 
pleted. “ My name is Brown. I’m from 
Boston — ” 

“We know that,” interrupted the ques¬ 
tioner. “You’re a land spekkilator. I 
hain’t any land to sell and I don’t want yer 
hoss. But just about whar was it?” 

Mr. Brown told them quite willlingly, all 
about the breaking down of his gray and 
how and of whom he had obtained his fresh 
mount. They were civil, but very particular 
in all their inquiries, and they stood around 



A n drew Jackson 


9i 


him somewhat closely, in a way that told him 
he must not try to escape until they were 
ready to let him go. They were a resolute¬ 
looking lot of men, and it might not have 
been wise to trifle with their tempers. 

“ That’s all, mister,” said one of them, at 
last. “ I don’t believe you had anything to 
do with the killin’ of Bill Jeckler. You kin 
go. But we’ll be even, yit, with Black Sam 
and Dan Martin.” 

“ I didn’t see any nigger,” said Mr. Brown, 
“ but the boy said he was going to join Jack¬ 
son’s army. I wonder if the general thinks 
he can fight veteran British soldiers with 
mere boys.” 

“What, mister? You don’t believe he 
can ? ” roared one of the men who had not 
before spoken. “ Don’t ye let off any fool 
talk ’bout the Tennessee boys. I say, fellers, 
Dan Martin’s a crack shot. He won the 
prize at the shootin’, to-day. If he’s goin’ 
into Jackson’s army, and if the nigger’s agoin’ 
in, that puts another show onto it. I’m 
goin’ right in, myself. Tell ye what! I’ll for¬ 
give any feller that’ll go down to New Orleans 



92 


The Errand Boy of 


with Jackson, to fight the British. What 
do ye say ? ” 

“Well, Jim,” drawled the first questioner, 
“ I reckon I’m with ye on that. Hosses’ll be 
safer, hereaway, for a while. But, stranger, 
did you mean to say anything agin’ Gineral 
Jackson ? ” 

“No, I didn’t,” replied Mr. Brown, with 
perfect self-possession. “ What I mean is 
that two and two make four. Count it for 
yourselves, now. General Pakenham will 
have fifteen thousand prime troops, with the 
best kind of artillery. How many men and 
guns must General Jackson have to make the 
fight a fair match ? I say he ought to have 
four times as many as are likely to join him. 
Now, what do either of you say to that cal¬ 
culation ? ” 

“ That’ll do, stranger,” said one of them. 
“ That’s on the square. I s’pose Gineral 
Jackson thinks so himself. But I’ll tell ye 
one thing, Mr. Boston man, we’ll fight the 
British if they’re ten to one.” 

“ Good night, men,” said Mr. Brown, as he 
sprang into the saddle. “ There’s plenty of 



Andrew Jackson 


93 


pluck in you. But I stick to it that what 
the general needs is more men and more 
cannon, and where he’s to get them I don’t 
know.” 

There was nothing unpatriotic or offensive 
in that saying, and he was permitted to ride 
away, leaving behind him four riflemen who 
illustrated very well a saying reported of the 
general: — 

“ Horse thieves, General Coffee ? Why, I 
wish I had every outlaw this side of the 
mountains, or in ’em, or beyond ’em. They’re 
all good shots, and we could spare ’em if they 
made up their minds to settle in New 
Orleans.” 

Away rode Mr. Brown, as unwilling as 
ever to be addressed as Major Upson, of the 
British army. He even seemed to be in 
haste, and now and then he cast glances be¬ 
hind him as if he had an idea of possible 
pursuers. 

“ That was a pretty narrow escape! ” he 
exclaimed, at last, when he had put behind 
him about three miles of a road which led 
southerly, toward the settlements on the 




94 


The Errand Boy of 


Tennessee River. “ Those horse thieves are 
American patriots, and they’d have put a 
bullet through me if they had found me 
out.” 

Below the Tennessee River, in that day, 
there were indeed roads, of one kind or. an¬ 
other, which went on southward until they 
disappeared among the forests of what is 
now the state of Mississippi. These were 
shortly to be trodden, wearily enough, by 
large parts of the army which General Jack- 
son was collecting. He was to exhibit the 
heroic side of his character by his courage, 
cheerfulness, endurance, and his support of 
the flagging spirits of his men, during that 
exhausting march. 

For ordinary travellers, nevertheless, the 
more usual, because easier, method of reach¬ 
ing the shore of the Gulf was by means of 
the flatboats which were then the forerunners 
of the mighty steamboats of the next genera¬ 
tion. Horses, cattle, merchandise, and men, 
even whole regiments of volunteers, might 
obtain transportation upon these rude and 
comfortless, but fairly safe, arks of the West. 




Andrew Jackson 


95 


Whatever might be the travelling plans of 
Major Upson, his present thoughts were 
busy with the results of his investigations 
thus far, and with the military resources of 
the American commander. 

“He has no artillery to speak of,” he said 
aloud, “ nor any sufficient ammunition, even 
if he could obtain the guns in time. No 
skilled artillerymen. General Harrison took 
away and used up a large part of the avail¬ 
able men from all this region. Jackson’s 
Creek campaign used up half of what was 
left. Now, if Jackson can get together as 
many men as he did before, or as many as 
Harrison did, he will do much better than I 
think he can. The fact is, as to Harrison, 
if the war office in London had given Gen¬ 
eral Proctor, in Ohio, as much as they are 
now giving Pakenham, he and Tecumseh 
could have crushed the Yankees at the 
Miami, and marched right on to Pittsburg. 
They could have established a new United 
States boundary line at the Alleghany Moun¬ 
tains. If Captain Barclay, on Lake Erie, 
could have had a fourth part of the naval 



9 6 


The Errand Boy of 


force that will soon be in the Gulf of Mexico, 
Perry would never have built any ships, nor 
could he have fought any battle. We should 
now have possession of all the great lakes, 
forever. What a mistake it was! All that 
is now left or required for General Paken- 
ham to do is to push right along and get hold 
of New Orleans before Jackson and his raw, 
half-armed militia come down the river.” 

Such was the entirely reasonable calcula¬ 
tion of a brave and experienced officer of 
the British army, who had been with General 
Proctor up to the final disaster to the British 
arms on the Thames River, in Canada. Be¬ 
yond a doubt, he was entirely correct, if he 
had not left out of account two very impor¬ 
tant elements of the military situation. One 
of these was the forever unaccountable slow¬ 
ness of the subsequent movements of the 
British fleet and army. The other was the 
war spirit of the West and the heroic good 
generalship of Andrew Jackson. 

The intelligent and daring British spy 
rode on southward. The patriotic squad of 
outlawed horse thieves went their own ways, 



Andrew Jackson 


97 


not half so full as heretofore of the revenge 
for the slaying of their comrade at Indian 
Spring. All the world outside of Tennessee 
knew nothing at all of the enormous impor¬ 
tance of what was going on in the front room 
of one small house in the main street of 
Nashville. 



9 8 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER VI 


DOWN THE CUMBERLAND 



ENERAL JACKSON and some of 


VJ his officers sat up late that evening, for 
the discussion of important despatches which 
had arrived from Washington, from the Pres¬ 
ident, the Secretary of War, and other im¬ 
portant personages. At the end of the long 
conference the general arose, and stood silent 
for a moment, somewhat gloomily, before he 
said: — 

“ Gentlemen, after all, this is as much as 
we had any right to expect. All that our 
government can give us, just now, is this 
full authority to raise and equip troops, and 
then do the best we can with them. I am 
satisfied.” 

“ I can’t say I am,” rasped General Coffee, 
angrily. “ They might send us more pow¬ 
der, if they can’t send anything else. Powder 
gets used up.” 



Andrew Jackson 


99 


“ There is a kind of remedy for that,” 
replied the general, with a brightening face; 
“ our men must be made to bear in mind that 
we are short of ammunition. Not one of 
them must throw away a shot. They must 
all do as good shooting as Dan Martin did, 
to-day, on the parade ground. Every bullet 
must be sent at a red-coated target, and they 
must plumb centre.” 

“ That would be the end of Pakenham’s 
army,” laughed another veteran officer. “ We 
must get the idea into ’em.” 

“ It’s in most of ’em now,” responded the 
commander-in-chief. “ I think you will see 
some good shooting at New Orleans.” 

The council of war broke up, all the minor 
members of it departed, and then the general 
himself wrote several letters before he lay 
down upon a low camp bed, in that same 
room, — to lie awake and think, hour after 
hour, of the tremendous work that was before 
him. 

Not long after sunrise next morning a 
group of about a dozen men stood on the 

river bank, a mile below Nashville. 

L.ofC. 



IOO 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Captain Hutton,” said General Coffee, 
“here are your full instructions. You may 
read this paper to Jean Lafitte, but he will 
have to be satisfied without any agreement 
in writing. The general doesn’t more’n half 
trust him, anyhow.” 

“ All right, general,” replied the captain; 
“ I’ll know what to say and do.” 

“ Of course you will,” said Coffee. “ Push 
off now. He doesn’t want anybody to know 
right away that you’ve gone. Much less, 
where you’re going. It’s a pretty good boat. 
Glad of that.” 

The men had been putting baggage of sev¬ 
eral kinds into a new-looking scow that lay 
moored at the bank. She was about fifteen 
feet long by five feet wide, so that, owing to 
her shallowness and flat bottom, it would re¬ 
quire but little depth of water to float her. 
There were said to be shoals in the Cumber¬ 
land, here and there, at this time of the year, 
and keelboats heavily laden might get stuck 
on them. There was no sign of any prepa¬ 
ration for making use of a sail, and Captain 
Hutton himself had remarked: — 



Andrew Jackson 


IOI 


“ Most of our work will be steering and 
poling. They say it’s mor’n two hundred 
miles to the Ohio, the way the Cumberland 
crooks, but nobody’s measured it yet.” He 
and his crew took their seats and the men 
on shore shoved off the scow, while General 
Coffee looked after them, remarking, some¬ 
what quizzically: — 

“ What a gang! One prime good young 
regular army officer, one raw boy, right from 
a farm. Good fellow, too. One Seminole 
scalper, one out-and-out black Satan, and 
one bloody pirate from Barataria. Well, if 
anything should happen, all of them can 
fight. I reckon, on the whole, Jackson’s 
message’ll get to Jean Lafitte.” 

“ The current’s running well,” said an 
officer who walked away with him. “ It’s 
good boating. But, between you and me, 
I’d about as lief hang Lafitte’s men as to 
make volunteers of them.” 

“Nonsense!” exclaimed General Coffee. 
“ I don’t believe they’re a bit worse than a 
Florida Seminole or a Tennessee outlaw. 
General Harrison employed the Maumees. 



102 


The Errand Boy of 


Proctor and Tecumseh pulled well together. 
The British on the Gulf’ll be glad to use 
the Red Stick Creeks, all that are left of them, 
just as they used the Iroquois in the Rev¬ 
olution, and as they have the Shawnees 
and Sioux and Winnebagoes in this war. 
Nobody cares much, nowadays, who it is 
that kills off his enemies for him. Jackson 
doesn’t care.” 

Black Sam was at the stern of the scow, 
steering her with a long, broad-bladed paddle. 
Ki-a-wok was in front, watching the water 
and ready to send back instructions to the 
steersman. Captain Hutton, Dan Martin, 
and Pierre Chanon were in the middle. 

“Dan, my boy,” said Hutton, “you told 
me that you knew a little French.” 

“ Only just a beginning,” said Dan. 

“Well,” said the captain, “you must learn 
more, as fast as you can. I must polish up my 
own, too, for it’s out of use and pretty rusty. 
I don’t intend to have any other language 
spoken on this boat all the way to the Ohio, 
— and afterward, too, so far as I can make it 
work. I’ll put you to school — myself too.” 



Andrew Jackson 


103 


M Just what I’d like,” said Dan. “Father 
said I’d need it in New Orleans.” 

“You’ll need it where we’re going,” his 
friend told him. “ Pick up every word you 
can.” 

“ How about Spanish ? ” asked Dan. 
“ Some of the Louisiana people were Span¬ 
iards. I might meet ’em.” 

“We can get along without it,” said the 
captain. “ If we should need it, Black Sam 
and the Seminole are Florida Spaniards,— 
after a fashion. I don’t know ten words of it. 
Chanon is a sailor, though, and seamen gather 
in all sorts of lingos. — Oh ! but won’t it be a 
tedious trip, floating down the Cumberland, 
the Ohio, and the Mississippi. They won’t 
run any faster, not even for General Jackson.” 

Dan was silent, and Captain Hutton him¬ 
self seemed inclined to be somewhat thought¬ 
ful, as the boat slipped along. 

“ Tedious ? How could such a trip as this 
is be tedious ? ” was the question which came 
next into Dan’s mind as he turned and looked 
around him, up and down the river. He 
seemed to himself to have come out from his 



104 


The Errand Boy of 


quiet home, quiet in spite of its memories, 
into an outside world, full of wonders. 

Captain Hutton, on the other hand, was an 
old campaigner, for a man of his age, and 
excursions of an adventurous character were 
nothing new to him. Dan thought of that. 

“ I’ve killed deer,” he said to himself. “ I 
killed a bear once, but the captain has seen 
some of Harrison’s battles. Anyhow, I saw 
Black Sam kill Bill Jeckler, and I won the 
shooting match. I’m here, now, too,—and 
oh! but isn’t General Jackson a great man? 
I mean to write to father about him the first 
chance I git. A letter from New Orleans 
would reach him.” 

He had learned that such was the fact, but 
that letters were often a long while on the 
way. His next interest was in his compan¬ 
ions. He knew Black Sam well enough, 
already, and believed him to be a pretty hard 
case. The Seminole seemed to put him in 
mind of Tecumseh and the war on the North¬ 
ern frontier. 

“Nobody can guess,” he thought, “how 
many scalps that red murderer has taken. 



Andrew Jackson 


105 

He has been killing men, women, and chil¬ 
dren all his life. All he wants now is a 
chance to kill some more, — he doesn’t care 
what for. I hope he’ll git killed himself, 
before long.” 

They had by this time swept on past the 
few farms and clearings along the bank, just 
below Nashville. There were but few tokens 
of improvement or cultivation now to be seen 
from the boat, for the farms inland were hid¬ 
den by the bluffs and by long reaches of 
forest. The scenery, therefore, was as wild 
as it had been when the first white explorers 
paddled up or down the Cumberland. Every 
square mile of all that region, moreover, had 
been won from the red men by hard fighting. 
It was believed to be secure enough, at last, 
from the Indians. The British might never 
march in as far as this. There was no prophet 
to tell of the terrible days of civil war, when 
larger armies than were then dreamed of in 
America were to march and countermarch, 
and fight great battles, in the near neighbor¬ 
hood of Nashville. 

The sun rose higher in the sky, and the 



io6 


The Errand Boy of 


day was becoming a hot one. The main 
business of the boatmen was to keep the 
scow in the middle of the stream, so as to 
obtain the full strength of the swift current. 
Dan was almost beginning to understand 
what Captain Hutton meant by the word 
“ tedious,” when something startled him tre¬ 
mendously. It was not a war-whoop or any¬ 
thing else of an exciting character. It was 
only the very musical voice of the Bara- 
tarian, Chanon, as he lay stretched out by 
Black Sam, at the stern. 

“ Who would have thought that such a 
man could sing ? ” said Dan to himself. 
“ But he can. I wish I understood enough 
of French to know what it is.” 

The voice of Chanon was a clear, full 
tenor, and had evidently been cultivated by 
much practice. 

“ Dan,” growled Captain Hutton, “ that 
kind of chap would sing just as well if he’d 
been scuttling a ship, after cutting every 
throat on board or making ’em all walk the 
plank. It’s a pretty good pipe he has too.” 

What was meant by scuttling a ship ? By 



Andrew Jackson 


107 


making the crew and passengers walk the 
plank ? Dan was compelled to put together 
all that he had ever heard concerning the 
sea, and ships, and buccaneers, before he 
could form even a faint idea of what those 
words might have in them. 

“ Awful! ” he thought. “ Why, that dandy 
Frenchman is as bad a murderer as Red 
Shirt Joe. I don’t know but what he’s 
worse, for he’s a white man. He must have 
seen horrible things in his day.” 

Perhaps he had, — who knew ? — yet there 
he lay now, not at all a bad-looking fellow, 
singing an old French love song with evi¬ 
dent delight, for all the world as if he had 
never done anything else more piratical or 
had never had a cutlass in his hand. 

The sea? The salt, wide ocean? That 
was far away, and it was not easy for a back- 
woods boy to form any satisfactory idea of it. 

“ I shall see the Gulf of Mexico, anyhow,” 
he thought, “ and I mean to get a sail on it, 
if I can, — in a ship.” 

It made him thrill all over, and he knew 
now that he would be as impatient as Cap- 



io8 


The Errand Boy of 


tain Hutton himself over the slow and wind¬ 
ing progress of boats down the rivers. 

The pirate, if he was one, finished his 
song, and lighted a long yellow cigar to 
while away the time. Hardly, however, had 
the first puff of blue smoke floated away 
when the mouth of Black Sam opened in an 
outburst of his own very peculiar laughter. 
As the laugh ended, he in his turn began 
to sing, and part of his song was more dif¬ 
ficult to understand than that of Pierre 
Chanon had been. It was, in fact, composed 
much more of sound than of articulate words, 
as were many of the strange weird melodies 
common among the black people. It was 
said that some of them, a kind of chants, had 
come all the way from savage Africa, and 
had been refitted in America, with only here 
and there a few scattered words of plantation 
English. 

The Indian listened intently, but the 
music seemed to have a bad effect upon him. 
His face grew dark and sullen, and his hand 
played with his tomahawk. 

“Ugh!” he grunted. “No good sing on 



Andrew Jackson 


109 


war-path. Take ’calp ? Sing ’calp song. 
Joe kill ole Crooked Knife? Sing heap 
loud!” 

More than once he had uttered what was 
supposed to be the whole of his Seminole 
war name, from which “ Ki-a-wok ” had been 
pruned down, but Dan had in vain attempted 
to remember or repeat it. 

“ It’s as long as your arm,” he had re¬ 
marked of it. “ Black Sam can speak it, but 
I don’t believe I ever could. He says it 
means ‘ The man whose hands and face are 
bloody,’ and if Red Shirt Joe hasn’t earned 
it nobody else ever did.” 

Noon came, but there was no landing 
made, for the noonday meal was eaten of 
cooked rations in the boat. 

“ We mustn’t lose an hour of time,” said 
Captain Hutton. “ The trip’ll be long 
enough, and every mile counts.” 

“ Can we keep on all night ? ” asked Dan. 

“ Of course we can,” said Hutton, “ unless 
it is too dark or too stormy. We can sleep 
and wake by turns. The river runs all 
night.” 



I IO 


The Errand Boy of 


“We might catch fish as we go,” said 
Dan. “ There are plenty in the river.” 

“ That’s what we’ll do,” replied the captain, 
“but not till later in the day. We can do it 
then, any time, and cook ’em on shore.” 

More than once, already, Dan had been 
called to account for making remarks in 
English. Each time, if overheard, he had 
been compelled to try the same thing over 
in French. It was something of a bore to 
him, but it seemed to amuse and occupy his 
young commander. Pierre Chanon also had 
taken a smiling share in the schooling, and 
Dan was likely to have a considerable 
amount of his new language worried into 
him. 

“ If this trip’s long enough,” he said to him¬ 
self, “ they’ll make a Frenchman of me before 
we get to New Orleans.” 

Who would have thought, however, that 
there was any fun in Red Shirt Joe? 

He listened gravely, watching the young 
student and his professors, and at last, with a 
grim smile on his face, he began to talk 
to Dan in unmistakable Seminole, that is, 



Andrew Jackson 


111 


nobody in that boat, except Black Sam, could 
have denied that it was the tongue commonly 
spoken among the Florida everglades. It 
may be, indeed, that he afterward poured 
out upon Dan more than one Indian dialect, 
and now and then he certainly did throw in a 
few words of Spanish. 

“ Boy no ’peak ? ” he said, at last. “ Boy 
talk French? Talk Seminole? No want 
talk Red Stick Creek. By and by, all Creek 
get kill, ugh ! ” 

In that hoped-for event, the tongue of that 
lost and scalped nation would be of no more 
use to the world. Dan, however, was quite 
willing not to acquire it, if there were here¬ 
after to be Creeks by the million. He did 
not feel so about French, at all, and a fever¬ 
ish flush went all over him when Pierre 
Chanon said to him: — 

“ One of these days, you will go to la belle 
France. You will see Paris, the most beau¬ 
tiful city in the world. You will see all 
Europe. French is the language of all 
nations. It will carry you anywhere.” 

Pirate, or privateer, or smuggler, he was 



I 12 


The Errand Boy of 


very nearly correct, for his native tongue was 
then, and for a long time afterward continued 
to be, the language of diplomacy and of much 
commercial correspondence among the great 
nations. Now, a change has come, or is 
coming, and the speech which Dan had 
learned at his mother’s knee has actually 
supplanted more original languages and is 
more widely spoken than any other. 

The sun was going down before any hooks 
and lines were thrown out. Fish enough 
were soon taken, and then a landing was made 
and a fire kindled. 

“ Only for cooking,” said Captain Hutton. 
“ We won’t camp here. It’s going to be the 
best kind of night for travelling.— Hullo! 
What’s become of that Indian ? ” 

Nobody could tell him. That is, the only 
sure thing was that the Seminole had seemed 
to disappear the instant the boat touched the 
shore. There was no good reason for imag¬ 
ining that he had run away, but his white 
and black comrades had broiled and eaten 
their suppers, and still the red warrior did 
not come for his own. Once, indeed, Pierre 



Andrew Jackson 


ii3 

Chanon declared that he heard the distant 
sound of a gun, but no second report followed 
to confirm him. 

“ I hope he didn’t go for scalps,” said 
Captain Hutton. “ There are no Creeks or 
British among these woods. I hope, though, 
that he won’t make us waste any time wait¬ 
ing here for him.” 

He did not. They had only just begun to 
wait and to be impatient when their Semi¬ 
nole friend strode out into the light of the 
camp fire and threw down near it the carcass 
of a fine fat buck. 

“ Ugh! ” he exclaimed. “No eat fish all 
time. Eat heap meat. Good ? ” 

“Good luck!” exclaimed Captain Hutton. 
“ I’m glad you happened to strike one. The 
woods must be full of ’em.” 

The deer were plentiful, truly, but it 
was probably well that the best hunter of 
the party had gone out to find one. “ Ugh ! ” 
growled he, as he broiled a cut of venison 
at the end of a stick. “ By an’ by, w’ite 
men kill all deer. Cut all tree. Make all 
farm. Heap fool.” 



The Errand Boy of 


114 

One important cause of Indian hostility 
to white settlers, from the beginning, had 
been the general perception, by the red men, 
that the game in all their forests was dimin¬ 
ishing. They themselves had disappeared 
before the fish also were destroyed from the 
rivers and ponds by wasteful white men. 

The halt was ended as soon as Joe arose 
from his deer-meat. Then, as the moon 
arose and the night breeze swept away the 
summer heat, the boat was pushed off, and 
General Jackson’s messengers went on down 
the Cumberland with the swift current. 

As for the general himself, he was having 
a warm time of it that evening. More de¬ 
spatches and letters had arrived, not only 
from the government at Washington, but 
from various parts of the country, East and 
West. He and his officers read and con¬ 
ferred hour after hour, and more than a 
little gloom seemed to be gathering around 
the long table in the army headquarters at 
Nashville. 

“ Gentlemen,” said the general, after sev¬ 
eral of his friends had commented upon the 



Andrew Jackson 


“5 

despatches, “ we can see how it is. All the 
war interest of the nation is transferring it¬ 
self from the Northern frontier to the South¬ 
ern. General Harrison whipped the British 
and Indians in front of him. The great 
lakes are clear of the British flag. We have 
beaten our Southern savages pretty thor¬ 
oughly too.” 

“We get some thanks for it,” interjected 
General Coffee, “ but that’s all.” 

“About all,” said Jackson, “and what I 
was going to add, is this. The Red Stick 
Creeks are out of our way, except a few hun¬ 
dreds that will join the British. I’m glad of 
that. And now we, with perhaps as many 
men as Harrison had with him in Ohio, are 
expected to face and fight five times our 
number of British veterans,—regular troops. 
That is the national calculation.” 

There was a bitterly sarcastic expression 
in his face and voice, and one after another 
the brave men around him admitted the un¬ 
promising character of the situation. There 
may have been sinking hearts among them, 
and there certainly were anxious faces, but 



The Errand Boy of 


116 

a gleam of light was growing in the eyes of 
the leader to whom they all were turning. 
He arose and stood erect at the end of the 
table. 

“ Gentlemen,” he said, “we know our exact 
position. We are expected to perform im¬ 
possibilities. That was what they asked of 
Perry, on Lake Erie. They demanded of 
him that he should build a new fleet and win 
a hopeless victory. He went ahead and did 
it! So will we! We will make a new army, 
and with it we will beat the British out of 
America. We will take in every man and 
boy, white, red or black, that can level a rifle 
or pull a trigger! ” 

Something like a shock of electricity went 
around the hitherto gloomy circle. Faces 
brightened. Eyes flashed. Strong hands 
went to sword hilts. Every man sprang to 
his feet, and several voices together ex¬ 
claimed : — 

“General Jackson, we’re with you! Hur¬ 
rah for New Orleans ! ” 

The time to cheer had hardly yet come, 
however. Heroism, energy, patriotism, might 



Andrew Jackson 117 

work wonders, here and there, but after all, 
whether they know it or not, the great ques¬ 
tions which remained to be settled was sim¬ 
ply this, “Will General Pakenham get there 
first,—or will Andrew Jackson?” 



118 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER VII 

NO GARRISON YET 

“T TGH! New Orleans!” said Ki-a-wok. 

“ Heap bad town. Joe no like ’em.” 

“ Here we are,” said Dan Martin, “but you 
can’t see much of the town from the deck of 
this old boat.” 

She was a flatboat of the largest size, and 
she was about to be moored to the levee on 
the left bank of the river, near the middle of 
all that then existed of the Crescent City. On 
her deck, well forward, stood a party of five 
who as yet had nothing better to do than to 
watch the colored “ roustabouts ” who were 
pulling on the hawsers and to wait for the 
running out of a gang-plank. They had had 
a long, long river voyage, and one of them 
felt that he was a great deal older than when 
he came away from home. 

Not only had Dan talked a great deal of 
French, acquiring the use of it with credit- 



Andrew Jackson 


119 

able rapidity, but he had heard and learned 
a great deal in other directions. Captain 
Hutton had taught him the manual of arms, 
and had told him many things about camps 
and forts and various war matters. The cap¬ 
tain had one strong point, however. It was 
stronger than any other in those days. He 
believed utterly in his commander-in-chief, and 
he had made Dan as enthusiastic as himself 
concerning Andrew Jackson and what that 
marvellous man was able to do. Dan had 
reached New Orleans, therefore, with a clear 
idea that it would be no town at all until the 
arrival of the general. All the crew of the 
flatboat and all of her passengers had seemed 
to be of the same opinion. 

“ Dan,” said Captain Hutton, cheerily, “ are 
you glad to get here ? I am.” 

“ I reckon I am,” said Dan. “ It’s been a 
long boat ride.” 

“ Well,” said the captain, “ all of Jackson’s 
army that comes on foot’ll have a harder 
time than we’ve had. I hope he’ll be able to 
bring some of ’em on boats.” 

“ If he does, they’ll be a long time getting 




120 


The Errand Boy of 


here,” said Dan. “ But if it hadn’t been for 
the boat hands I’d ha’ forgotten my English.” 

“ Humph ! ” said the captain. “ English ? — 
Why, you’re going right into a French 
school. This place hasn’t been American a 
dozen years yet. It takes longer’n that to 
change people a great deal. Anyhow, no 
Frenchman likes the British, and there’ll 
be a pretty strong loyalty of that kind to the 
Stars and Stripes. You’ll come along with 
me. I must deliver my papers to Colonel 
Ross and Governor Claiborne, if they’re in 
town.” 

“Captain,” said Pierre Chanon, in French, 
“ am I to meet you at Madame Bourier’s ? 
It won’t do for me to be seen in town until I 
know what’s been done while I’ve been away. 
Jean Lafitte himself may be locked up.” 

“Or dead,” said the captain. “We are all 
at sea till we hear the news.” 

“ I’s gwine wid Chanon,” said Black Sam. 
“ Joe’ll go ’long too.” 

“ Ugh ! ” disputed the Seminole. “ Chief 
’tay on boat. No like heap town.” 

Dan was aware of a queer perception that 



Andrew Jackson 


I 2 I 


he understood the red man’s dislike to that 
overlarge collection of houses and people. 
Nashville had been a kind of wonder to a 
backwoods boy, but he had been there before, 
and this time he had seen only such men and 
women and buildings as he was accustomed 
to. Here, however, was something much 
more extensive and altogether different. He 
felt that he was going ashore into a new un- 
American country, and a sense of his green¬ 
ness, that is, of his utter ignorance, was 
taking hold of him. He had plenty of cour¬ 
age, however, and he boldly walked away 
with Captain Hutton, — keeping close to 
him. 

Only a small part of New Orleans was as 
yet built up at all compactly, — the business 
district along the water front. The rest of 
it was scattered over a wide area, the wealth¬ 
ier citizens priding themselves upon the 
extent of their grounds and gardens. There 
were not many buildings with claims to 
architectural beauty, and by far the greater 
part were one and two storied wooden affairs, 
which would have been all the better for fresh 



122 


The Errand Boy of 


paint. The “ embargo,” before the war, and 
the war itself had borne hard upon the pros¬ 
perity of New Orleans. There were consider¬ 
able numbers of sea-going vessels now tied up 
along the river banks, on either side, rotting 
in idleness under the hot sun, and idly wait¬ 
ing for the peace which seemed to be as far 
away as ever. 

Some of the warehouses, here and there, 
were really extensive, and in these, also, were 
waiting thousands of hogsheads of sugar, 
numberless bales of tobacco, and a yet more 
valuable deposit of baled cotton. These, 
with all the other accumulated wealth of 
the seaport, were looked upon by their 
owners, just now, as the very probable booty 
of the coming British invaders. 

Some of it, nobody could guess how much, 
was said to be the property of the Lafitte 
brothers; and concerning these Dan Martin 
had learned much on his way down the 
river. He knew that they owned, or had 
seized, the island of Grand Terre, between 
Barataria Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, 
about forty miles south of New Orleans. 



Andrew Jackson 


I2 3 


He knew that they had fortified the island 
so strongly that they had beaten off a British 
man-of-war. Whatever else he had learned 
was somewhat confused in his mind, but 
Captain Hutton had told him that his next 
errand for General Jackson was likely to 
take him right into the far-famed nest of 
the Barataria buccaneers. With reference 
to that and some other matters, his hand 
went to his pockets as he now walked along 
with the captain. He still had eighty dollars, 
and it would not do to let any kind of 
pirates take it away from him. Neverthe¬ 
less, it gave him greater confidence to feel 
that he was rich and a soldier, instead of 
landing in a strange city, as some boys had 
done, without either friends or money. 

“ I belong to General Jackson’s army,” he 
thought, “and I’m under his orders, and 
those of Captain Hutton.” 

At that point he began to forget every¬ 
thing else in the excitement of seeing so 
much that was new. Captain Hutton walked 
on like a man with business on his hands, 
and Dan kept up with him, mechanically, 



124 


The Errand Boy of 


only two or three times running against 
other wayfarers, while his eyes were wander¬ 
ing around too busily to warn him as to 
what or who was coming next. 

Black Sam and Chanon, on getting ashore, 
had walked away along the river bank. They 
seemed to be in haste, and they did not meet 
any acquaintances, but in about five minutes 
they halted near a large wooden building. 
It seemed to be a warehouse or commercial 
establishment, of some sort, but it was shut 
up, and there was a chain and padlock on 
the door of the main entrance. In front of 
this stood a man in uniform who was appar¬ 
ently acting as a guard. A few paces be¬ 
yond him lounged a long, sallow-faced fellow 
in a blue shirt, ragged trousers, and a pair 
of sailor-made canvas shoes. 

Pierre Chanon uttered a low exclamation 
and jerked Sam’s arm sharply. 

“ Everything has been seized,” he said. 
“ There’s one of our men. Walk on.” 

“ Reckon dey won’t grab me,” muttered 
Sam, as he obeyed, and they passed the 
warehouse, followed at once by the lounger. 



A n dr ew Jackson 


125 


“ What is it, Antoine ? ” asked Chanon, as 
soon as they three were by themselves. 

“ The same old story,” said Antoine. 
“ Dominique Lafitte is in jail. Five hun¬ 
dred dollars reward is offered for Jean. We 
must all keep still until the storm blows 
over. We have been through such things 
before this.” 

“ It is going to be worse for us this time,” 
said Chanon, gloomily. “I must see Jean 
immediately. Where is there a canoe to be 
had? I want a large one, to take half a 
dozen or more.” 

“ All right,” said Antoine. “ I will have 
a boat to-morrow evening, at the lower 
landing. We can get out through Bayou 
Quereau. They are watching the other 
passes. It won’t do for you to be seen in 
the city right away.” 

“ What then ? ” asked Chanon. 

“You and the nigger take that dugout 
yonder and paddle across to the other 
shore. Go to Henrique’s place. Every¬ 
thing’ll be ready for you at the right time.” 

“ Good ! ” said Chanon. “ You must go to 



126 


The Errand Boy of 


headquarters and find Captain Hutton, just 
come down from General Jackson. Or see 
a boy that’s with him, named Dan Martin. 
Let them know what to do and where to 
meet us and our boat. That’s all, Antoine, 
but there’s a bad storm coming.” 

“ There always was one,” laughed Antoine, 
“ and it always blew over.” 

He had good reasons for his cheerful con¬ 
fidence. Again and again, year after year, 
the Louisiana state authorities and those of 
the nation had threatened vigorous measures 
for the suppression of the lawless community 
at Barataria. Just as often, all their asserted 
plans had failed, or been abandoned, and the 
Lafitte brothers had returned to their regular 
business of using New Orleans as if that port 
and city had been little more than a very 
convenient branch of their establishment on 
Grand Terre Island. 

Right under the noses of professedly angry 
and threatening officials, scores of cargoes of 
smuggled or pirated merchandise had been 
distributed up the river, or sold at auction 
to eager bidders upon Grand Terre. Much 



A ndrew Ja ckson 


127 


was known to reach warehouses in the city. 
Planters and merchants dealt almost openly 
with the Lafittes, and carried home all pur¬ 
chases without molestation. Among the 
branches of trade and commerce to which 
especial attention was given by the Bara- 
tarians was the slave trade, whether they 
brought their black chattels all the way from 
Africa, or whether they operated as a pirati¬ 
cal thorn in the sides of other slave traders. 
Every now and then they were able to 
offer the planters reenforcements of field 
hands and other laborers, male and female, 
hundreds at a time. One notable lot, sold at 
auction in the usual market-place at Grand 
Terre, was reported credibly to have num¬ 
bered four hundred and fifty souls. 

Pierre Chanon and Black Sam entered the 
dugout and paddled away, but they did not 
at once cross the river. They went up stream 
to the flatboat which had brought them to 
New Orleans. 

“ There’s the Seminole, away aft,” said 
Chanon. “ I wish I could make him see us 
without sending any hail on board.” 



128 


The Errand Boy of 


Red Shirt Joe, or Ki-a-wok, was sitting at 
the stern of the flatboat with his head drooped 
as if he were asleep.” 

“ No ’peak,” said Black Sam. “ Go ahead; 
Joe kin see a chipmunk inside of a hick’ry 
log. He allers keep he eye open; s’pose he 
gone dead.” 

He had had experience, probably, of the 
wonderful faculty of an Indian on a war-path, 
for not letting anything escape his tireless 
watchfulness. The flatboat seemed to be 
deserted by its crew, except that one black 
roustabout was lying on the levee as a watch¬ 
man, and was lazily brushing away the flies 
that annoyed him. The canoe touched the 
side, and Sam put a hand on the shoulder of 
Chanon. 

“Keep ’till,” he said; “wait a bit. Joe 
lift he hand. Come right away.” 

“ I’d better hail him,” said Chanon. “ I 
won’t go on board; but we’re in a hurry — ” 

Hardly were the words out of his mouth, 
however, before an ugly copper-colored face 
peered over the side of the flatboat with a low, 
inquiring, “ Ugh ? ” 



Andrew Jackson 


129 


Black Sam replied only by a beckoning 
motion of his hand. 

“Ugh!” said the Seminole. “Good. No 
’tay on boat. — Sam take gun.” 

He handed down Sam’s rifle, which had 
been left in his keeping; then his own, and 
a small buckskin sack, which contained his 
other war-path baggage. A rope lay hitched 
to a ring on the deck, and no sailor could 
have beaten the swift and stealthy gliding 
down of Joe into the dugout by help of that 
rope. He took up a paddle and began to 
ply it. Off went the unsteady little craft like 
a racer, and this part of General Jackson’s 
scouting expedition was beyond probable in¬ 
terruption by any of the local authorities. 

Dan Martin was already somewhat 
vaguely aware that Captain Hutton, as they 
walked along, had held two or three brief 
conversations with men whom he met. As 
for anything they had said or not said, Dan 
could not have reported satisfactorily, for his 
young head had been more than busy with 
other things. It might have been described 
as running over with this remarkable city and 



130 


The Errand Boy of 


its twenty thousand inhabitants. The cap¬ 
tain now came to a halt and said: — 

“ Dan, my boy, here we are at the head¬ 
quarters of Governor Claiborne. Sit down 
in the piazza, outside, while I go in. If any¬ 
body questions you, say you’re here under 
my orders. — But the news is tremendous. 
There is a British squadron already at Pen¬ 
sacola, with some troops, nobody knows how 
many. They are enlisting and arming the 
Creeks. They have issued proclamations to 
the people of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Ken¬ 
tucky. That’ll just please General Jackson. 
It’ll help him raise volunteers. We must 
get along quickly with our errand though, 
for Commodore Patterson is getting ready 
an expedition against Barataria. He can 
take it, too, for the buccaneer batteries at 
Grand Terre are all on the seaward side 
of the island. They are no protection 
against a naval force coming down through 
the bayous and across the bay. I don’t 
believe Jean Lafitte will offer any resist¬ 
ance.” 

Dan became himself again as he listened. 



Andrew Jackson 


131 

All of his gawky uncertainty as a green 
country boy disappeared, and so did a half- 
dazed bewildered expression which had been 
upon his face. He had once more been 
made to feel that he was one of General 
Jackson’s men, a soldier on important duty, 
and he became as alert and self-possessed 
as if he were looking out for game or for 
Indians among his own woods. 

“ Captain!” he exclaimed, “I reckon I ought 
to have spoken about it sooner. I saw that 
man Brown.” 

“ What man was he ? ” asked the captain. 

“ Why,” said Dan, “ he’s the British spy I 
sold my horse to. He was in a different 
rig, this time, but I’m dead sure I caught a 
glimpse of him.” 

“All right,” said Hutton. “Don’t say a 
word about him to anybody. General Jack- 
son wants Pakenham to know just how our 
affairs looked, to an Englishman, when that 
fellow went through. He won’t be able to 
tell how they look to the general himself.” 

“ I’ll obey orders,” said Dan, “ but oughtn’t 
any spy to be shot ? ” 



i 3 2 


The Errand Boy of 


“You trust General Jackson and mind 
your own business,” laughed Hutton, for he 
believed that he understood the purposes of 
his far-sighted commander. 

Perhaps he could imagine General Jackson 
explaining the spy business with: — 

“We must let the British believe that I 
have no army and can’t get one together 
before next year. No news must reach them 
that will make them hurry forward. As for 
their advance squadron, whatever it is, every 
day it wastes at Pensacola is a day saved for 
our work at Mobile and New Orleans.” 

Whether or not that was the general’s line 
of argument, one man had been greatly star¬ 
tled that morning. He had been pausing to 
purchase cigars of a dealer on what was then 
the main thoroughfare of the city, and the 
weed he was about to light had suddenly 
fallen from his hand. 

“ Great heavens! ” he exclaimed, in an 
astonished whisper. “ That’s my horse boy ! 
How on earth did he get here? He would 
know me in a moment. They’d hang me, 
sure, if they caught me. I must get on board 



Andrew Jackson 


133 


the Polly at once, whether she’s ready to sail 
or not.” 

Then the brave fellow became instantly 
cool and self-possessed, and he did not walk 
away like a man who knew that he went along 
that street with a hangman’s noose swinging 
over his head. He had even picked up the 
fallen cigar, and he lighted it calmly, with 
Dan Martin and Captain Hutton within 
twenty paces of him. 

Coming southward on horseback, with a 
well-mounted party of American patriots for 
company, he had travelled by a shorter route 
and more rapidly than had the flatboat which 
had carried Dan and his friends around the 
many windings of the Mississippi River. He 
had now been in New Orleans, therefore, 
quite long enough to make his desired obser¬ 
vations pretty thoroughly. He had been even 
preparing to get away before this unexpected 
warning of danger had come to him. 

“ I couldn’t do much more here, anyhow,” 
he was thinking. “ I must say that there are 
more cannon here and more fortifications and 
more men than I expected to find, but there 



134 


The Errand Boy of 


isn’t anything yet to hinder a strong British 
column from marching right in and occupy¬ 
ing the city. It could be done without any 
loss to speak of, if they come any time this 
year. I can report that General Jackson 
won’t be here for six months, at the least, if 
he waits for an army to bring with him.” 

He had measured the situation closely, in¬ 
telligently, correctly, as it appeared to an 
English army officer, and as it would have 
continued to be, but for one half-invalid who 
was even now making his painful and difficult 
way from Nashville to the Gulf coast. 

Major Upson soon began to walk more 
rapidly, and before long he reached the river 
bank near the spot where a small, unarmed 
schooner lay at anchor, a few yards out. A 
strip of blue bunting was fluttering from one 
of her booms, and a sailor sat near it watch¬ 
ing the shore. The moment that this man 
caught a sight of Major Upson, he put a boat¬ 
swain’s whistle to his lips and blew it twice. 
Then a small boat, rowed by two sailors, came 
leisurely around from the opposite side of the 
schooner and toward the shore. 



Andrew Jackson 


135 


“ Hullo!’ 5 said the major. “ It looks as if 
something may be going wrong already.” 

The boat was pulled straight for him, and 
as it touched the bank a man in it leaned 
forward to say: — 

“ Get in, Major. We have obtained our 
papers. We can pass Fort Philip. Were 
bound for Venezuela, you know. Our cargo’s 
all aboard. We are to take our chances for 
escaping British cruisers, of course.” 

“ Hurrah ! ” went back, with half-suppressed 
energy. “ It may be just in time to save my 
neck. I believe I’m discovered by some Ten¬ 
nessee men. Are we to start at once ? ” 

“Up canvas and out,” was responded, with 
an earnestness equal to his own. “ I was 
afraid we’d be detected before this time. It’s 
our last day, I’m thinking.” 

“ There isn’t much doubt of that,” said 
the major, “but we’ve learned all there is 
to learn. Our errand’s done, and we needn’t 
linger and throw away all we’ve risked our 
lives for.” 

In a minute or so more, they were on 
board, but even then the schooner did not 



136 


The Err and Boy of 


exhibit any signs of haste, — nothing to at¬ 
tract attention. The anchor arose from its 
bed of mud as if it were still asleep, and the 
sails went up slowly. Only a few sailors 
were visible. The most acute observer might 
have discovered no reason for supposing the 
Polly to be more than she professed to be. 
Nevertheless, every man on board of her was 
an enlisted British sailor, full of loyalty to 
his flag and to his king, and her commander 
was the sailing-master of a British man-of- 
war. 

The schooner moved away, and, as she 
swept slowly down the stream, a tall man, 
who stood near the mainmast, gazing back 
at the city, drew a long breath of relief. 

“ Thank God ! ” he exclaimed. “ I’m out 
of it. I shall feel better when I see the red 
cross flag at the peak of a British seventy- 
four. But, after all I’ve seen and heard, 
I’d give something to know what that man 
Jackson is really going to do. I saw him. 
There is danger in that man. So there is 
in those sharp-shooting riflemen of his.” 

No one but himself knew what that man 



Andr ew J a c k s on 


137 


Jackson was doing, nor anywhere nearly 
how much. Neither did they understand 
that the greatest of all his anxieties related 
to the time which was likely to be consumed 
by the British military and naval authorities 
in sending forward their great expedition. 

Dan Martin had by this time seen Captain 
Hutton again, and had received instructions 
concerning his own quarters and rations. 
He had been permitted to stroll around the 
city for an hour or so, as he said, that he 
might feel a little less like a cat in a strange 
garret. After that, he was once more in 
waiting at Governor Claiborne’s headquarters 
as the “ orderly ” of Captain Hutton. 

The captain was to dine there with the 
governor. Among the guests were to be 
Commodore Patterson, in command of the 
naval forces of the United States in the 
Gulf of Mexico; Colonel Ross, in command 
of the detachment from the regular army, 
stationed at New Orleans; with a few other 
gentlemen of note, who were eager to dis¬ 
cuss, conversationally, all the news they had 
from the North or from the British invasion. 



The Errand Boy of 


138 

Of course, they had later advices from all 
places than had been brought by Hutton, 
but whatever they knew of General Jack¬ 
son’s doings required explanation and addi¬ 
tion from an officer of his own staff. It was 
after the dinner was cleared away, — not at a 
very early hour, — that Commodore Patter¬ 
son may have made a mistake. 

“ Gentlemen,” he said, “ the governor and 
I agree with General Jackson about this 
Barataria business. We must make a 
clean sweep of the buccaneers as soon as 
we can. Anyhow, Captain Hutton, you may 
go and do your errand. I’ll not interfere 
with you. See me as soon as you return. 
Let me have all the particulars. The gov¬ 
ernor and I will hold off our hands until you 
return.” 

That remark may or may not have been 
heard by the wrong ears, but Jean Lafitte’s 
law adviser and defender, Edward Living¬ 
ston, was at the table. 

“ That is all I ask,” responded Captain 
Hutton. “ The general will be entirely sat¬ 
isfied. He means to attend to them, if you 



Andrew Jackson 


139 


do not, but he does not wish the British gen¬ 
erals to make use of them. Grand Terre 
Island would be a strong position, too, for 
a British force to hold.” 

“ After hanging its present garrison ? ” 
laughed the brave sailor. “ Well, I think it 
wouldn’t be worth much. The general over¬ 
estimates it. But he does not at all over¬ 
value the fighting qualities of the buccaneers. 
Lafitte could give us a couple of hundred 
trained artillerymen. We shall need every 
good gunner we can lay our hands on, — sea- 
wolf, land-wolf, Turk, or Egyptian.” 

The dinner ended, the guests departed, 
and Captain Hutton walked quietly away, 
attended only by Dan Martin* 



140 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE BAYOU QUEREAU 

HE hot, damp air hung heavily down 



JL over the vast expanse of the Mississippi 
River delta. It is a region which the river 
itself has manufactured with wonderful in¬ 
dustry, century after century. It has done 
so by means of a main channel, not always 
running on the same line, from which, on 
either side, smaller streams go out like the 
fingers of a hand, — or of several hands. 
These lateral branches are called bayous, 
and a map of them made eighty years ago 
would not fit very well now. The diggings 
and borings which have been made seem 
to indicate that the salt sea was once at 
least six hundred feet deep at New Orleans. 
Much of the land in that vicinity will even 
now shake a little if a heavy man treads 
on it. Salt water may be reached, almost 
anywhere, at a few feet below the surface. 



Andrew Jackson 141 

Of course, many of the ancient bayous 
disappeared, as the country was built up by 
floods of muddy water from the north, but 
others remained, permanently, and were 
used by the settlers as canals. 

One of the most important employments 
of some of these bayous, in the year 1814, 
was that of giving the pirate merchants of 
Barataria Bay the means of conveying 
their merchandise to New Orleans and the 
interior without passing under the guns of 
Fort Philip, on the lower river, where also 
custom house officials might be watching 
for smugglers. 

The bay itself is a broad sheet of land¬ 
locked water, an admirable harbor, cut off 
from the gulf by several islands. The lar¬ 
gest of these, Grand Terre, is about six miles 
long and not over three miles wide at its 
greatest width. The mainland, above the 
bay, is of varied character, and many of its 
available areas for plantations were even 
at that early day improved and occupied. 
Some of the occupants were said to have 
acquired much of their apparent wealth by 



142 


The Errand Boy of 


means of their relations with the peculiar 
commerce carried on from the offices and 
warehouses on Grand Terre Island. 

The bayous which opened into Barataria 
Bay wound away inland to a number of other 
settlements and plantations, to all of which 
merchandise might be conveyed as easily as 
to New Orleans itself. It was well known 
that fleets of barge ran to and fro, hither 
and thither, as occasion required. It was 
also said that the old-time authorities stipu¬ 
lated with the Lafitte brothers only that all 
goods, human or other, for the city, should 
be taken up or across the river after night¬ 
fall, when neither they nor anybody else 
could know how it was done. After getting 
into safe stowage in the city, one lot of goods 
might be marketed as well as another, — and 
no questions asked. 

Some distance below the city limits and 
away over in the Bayou Quereau, at a late 
hour that evening, lay a well-made boat, 
resembling in shape and size the cutter of a 
man-of-war. It carried six oars and as many 
black rowers were holding them, ready for 



Andrew Jackson 


M3 


orders. At the prow sat Black Sam, Pierre 
Chanon, and Red Shirt Joe. At the stern 
were Dan Martin, Captain Hutton, and a 
'man whom Pierre Chanon had addressed as 
Captain Rousseau, but to whom not one of 
the black oarsmen had spoken a word. 
They sat in their places like so many 
wooden men, but then a slave was a slave 
in those days. Over him continually hung 
a whip and not far away from him was a 
levelled gun-barrel. 

Dan’s outfit had undergone a change, for 
Captain Hutton had made him put on a 
neatly fitting jacket suit of blue flannel, a 
straw hat, and a pair of shoes. He had not, 
however, parted with his rifle or his belt- 
pistols, and the captain still wore his sword. 
Ki-a-wok was as much a savage dandy as 
ever, his distinguishing garment being fresh 
and very red, reenforced by a blazing red 
silk neckerchief. The greatest change of 
all was in Black Sam, for he now appeared 
in a full suit of white cotton duck, yellow 
shoes, and a straw hat, besides having been 
in the hands of a New Orleans barber who 



144 


The Errand Boy of 


considered a close crop the correct thing for 
wool. His necktie was brilliantly blue, and 
his shark teeth were showing, every now and 
then, as if he were getting ready to use them 
on somebody. 

“ Ready?” asked Captain Hutton. 

A low bow was the only response, and a 
lifted hand for which the oarsmen had been 
waiting. The oars went out in perfect uni¬ 
son, and the cutter glided swiftly away over 
the placid water of Bayou Quereau. 

“ Captain Rousseau,” said Hutton, “ may I 
ask how long is the trip to Grand Terre ? ” 

“We are to be there before to-morrow 
noon,” responded Rousseau, politely. “ I must 
obtain a relay of rowers on the way. We 
are to get an early breakfast at the planta¬ 
tion of my friend, Monsieur La Blanche. 
Did you have a pleasant voyage down the 
river ? ” 

“ Slow,” said Captain Hutton. “ Tedious. 
General Jackson’s volunteers will have a 
harder time, though, making so long a march 
by land. What is your opinion about his 
holding New Orleans?” 



Andrew Jackson 


H5 


“ My dear Monsieur Hutton,” said the 
courteous Frenchman, “you are a military 
man. I am not. I might say, however, if 
you are not familiar with the approaches to 
our city, I have studied them. I am satisfied 
that the British army cannot attack by any 
avenue which will not compel them to face 
superior numbers, if our magnificent general 
is the man I fully believe him to be.” 

“ They will attack with over ten thousand 
men, we are told,” said Captain Hutton. 

“ Monsieur! ” replied Rousseau, with en¬ 
ergy, his dark, intelligent eyes flashing fire. 
“No! There is no place where they can 
bring half that number to the front at once. 
Not a third of it. Our general, therefore, 
will repulse them with superior numbers. 
I have confidence in the hero of so many 
battles.” 

“ So has everybody else,” said Hutton. 
“ But the British have the advantage in 
artillery.” 

“ That remains to be seen,” said Rousseau, 
with a meaning smile, and the talk went on 
concerning various features of the situation. 



146 


The Errand Boy of 


“ I know what the captain’s up to,” thought 
Dan. “ He’s pumping him. I’m glad I 
know French enough to understand them. 
He’s a good-looking pirate.” 

That unspoken remark referred to the 
commander of the cutter. From head to 
foot there was not upon him any sign of 
seamanship. He looked much more like a 
prosperous merchant, in his perfectly fitting 
suit of expensive dark blue cloth. 

His hat was a costly Panama. There was 
a brilliant diamond gleaming on the snow- 
white frill of his shirt front. Nevertheless, 
he was belted, and a brace of long-barrelled, 
silver-mounted pistols was supplemented by an 
elegant cutlass in a silver-ornamented sheath. 
He was of fair complexion, with dark hair 
and black, piercing eyes. As he chatted on, 
so freely, concerning war affairs and other 
matters, it seemed to Dan that Captain 
Hutton must be obtaining a great deal of 
useful information. 

“ He’s sharp,” thought Dan. “ That’s why 
General Jackson picked him out for this 
business. Rousseau doesn’t seem to care 



Andrew Jackson 


147 


what he says, but he never speaks of pirates. 
He talks, though, about smuggling and pri¬ 
vateering. I reckon if a ship’s crew had all 
their throats cut, they wouldn’t care much 
whether it was called piracy or not.” 

It became dull work for him after a while. 
Even his own thoughts tired him. They 
went back into all that he had seen of New 
Orleans. Then they travelled up the Missis¬ 
sippi, the Ohio, and the Cumberland, to Nash¬ 
ville, and he wished that he knew how 
General Jackson was getting along with his 
new army. After that, however, all his 
mind and heart were at the old log home¬ 
stead, and he felt half sick when he imagined 
his mother and father and all the rest, sitting 
there without him, this very evening, and 
telling each other, “ I wonder where Dan 
is now.” 

That was the last of it. His dream of 
home faded away, and he lay sound asleep in 
the bottom of the boat. It was Rousseau 
himself who kindly lifted him into an easier 
position, shortly. 

“ He is only a young recruit, monsieur,” 



148 


The Errand Boy of 


said Captain Hutton, “but he is an uncom¬ 
monly good rifle-shot.” 

“ That is all our general need care for,” 
responded Rousseau. “ The British musket 
is not the equal of the American rifle. The 
one hits its mark all the while, and the other 
only now and then. The men who shoot 
straight are always in superior numbers,— 
especially if they are behind any sort of good 
breastwork.” 

It was a starlit night, and it soon grew 
cooler, with a fresh breeze from the sea. It 
was easier to understand, then, why Captain 
Rousseau, or any other wise man in that 
region, should prefer making such a journey 
by night rather than by day. The busy 
mosquitoes, indeed, might be around at any 
time, but some of the larger flies were in the 
habit of quitting work at sunset. 

Dark, mysterious, gloomy, wonderful, were 
the winding water-ways through which the 
cutter slipped along. The monotonous dip¬ 
ping of the oars was enough, of itself, to 
make one sleepy. Captain Hutton grew 
drowsy. Black Sam was curled down in a 



Andrew Jackson 


149 


heap on the boat bottom. So, after a while, 
was Pierre Chanon, but there were two men 
in the cutter who were as wide-awake as 
ever. 

Captain Rousseau sat in the stern, steering 
the boat with perfect skill, his face now and 
then changing its expression in a way that 
was not easy to understand. His lips did 
not open, except for an occasional curt com¬ 
mand to his black oarsmen ; but once he mut¬ 
tered, in French, between his teeth : “ This is 
the end. We are pirates! We are to be 
broken up. We will save our necks, at all 
events. I mean to save mine. Property too. 
I see that I cannot hope to protect every¬ 
body. I must take care of myself, first, at 
all events.” 

That was about what might have been ex¬ 
pected, reasonably, from any man in his sup¬ 
posed line of trade, whatever nonsense has 
sometimes been talked about honor among 
thieves. He said no more during hour after 
hour, and many miles of crooked bayou were 
put behind them. It was a little before 
sunrise that Captain Hutton was awakened 



The Errand Boy of 


150 

by a slight jar, as if the boat had struck 
against something. In an instant he was sit¬ 
ting up, and Captain Rousseau greeted him 
heartily with: — 

“ Good morning, my friend! I am glad 
you have slept well. This is the place of 
Monsieur La Blanche. They will have 
breakfast ready for us.” 

“ Good morning, Captain Rousseau,” re¬ 
sponded Hutton. “ I think I shall be quite 
ready for a good breakfast. It is not fully 
light yet. Shall we not disturb them ? ” 

“ Not at all,” said Rousseau. “ They are 
aware that we are coming. It is the custom 
among many of our planters to breakfast 
early. Ha ha, and then they go to sleep 
again. My boy ? ” 

Dan had also felt the jar as the boat 
touched the shore, and his eyes had opened, 
but they would have closed again if it had 
not been for Captain Hutton and the polite 
Frenchman. Up he came now, and stared 
eagerly about him, but there was not much 
to be seen at first. Here was the boat in 
the bayou, and a black man was mooring it 



Andrew Jackson 


151 

to a projecting wooden pier. At this place, 
moreover, the narrow stream widened into a 
basin, a small lake of several acres in extent. 
His companions were still in the boat, and 
the Seminole himself was gravely saying to 
him : — 

“ Boy sleep heap. Good. Wake up, now. 
Go shore. Eat heap. Feel good.” 

The fact was that the ferocious red scalper 
had, from the first, seemed to take a liking 
to the young marksman, and to consider him 
in some measure under his own especial care. 
He waited now, while Dan finished his quick 
survey of the basin, and of the dense forest 
growth which bordered on all sides but this. 

“ Come along, Dan,” said Captain Hutton, 
as he stepped ashore, and Dan and the rest 
followed him. 

They found at once a number of other 
things to stare at. The ground arose the 
height of only a few feet above the water 
level, but here was a wide extent of cleared 
and cultivated land. A hundred yards from 
the pier, across a closely shaven lawn that 
was dotted with parterres of flowers and 



152 


The Errand Boy of 


rows of vines and fruit trees, stood a well' 
built plantation house. It had verandas, 
window blinds, and awnings, while beyond it 
were good outbuildings and other indications 
of prosperity. 

Coming from the house, at this moment, 
was a tall gentleman in a blue jacket and 
yellow nankeens, who sent before him a loud 
and hearty shout of welcome. 

“ Monsieur La Blanche,” as loudly re¬ 
sponded the master of the cutter, “ Captain 
Rousseau and his friends have come to take 
breakfast with you. Permit me to introduce 
Captain Hutton, aide-de-camp to our glorious 
leader, General Jackson. With him are his 
orderly and servant and the great Seminole 
war chief, Ki-a-wok. With Monsieur Pierre 
Chanon you are already acquainted.” 

The reply was hospitality itself, and Mon¬ 
sieur La Blanche seemed also to know how 
to shake hands with an Indian chief. To 
Dan he kindly remarked : — 

“ Come along, my boy. You and the chief 
are to come with your captain. My people 
will care for your nigger.” 



A 7t drew JcicksoTi 


153 


He understood, of course, the social differ¬ 
ence between a mere private soldier and a 
young gentleman, some Tennessee planter’s 
son, who owned slaves, such as Black Sam 
was supposed to be. 

Dan stretched himself, as he made the 
politest reply he could, for he needed to get 
out the stiffness caused by his cramped sleep¬ 
ing-place in the cutter. As he did so, the 
thought in his mind was that never before, 
not even around Nashville, had he seen so 
fine a residence with such well-kept grounds 
as this. Perhaps there were some like it at 
New Orleans, but he had had no opportunity, 
as yet, for admiring them. 

Either the raising of sugar and cotton 
and tobacco crops was exceedingly profitable, 
or the owner of this plantation must have 
other sources of revenue. 

One thing which Dan did not see, how¬ 
ever, was a long line of prison-like log bar¬ 
rack-huts, at some distance in the rear of 
the mansion. They were enough to furnish 
quarters for the field hands who might culti¬ 
vate two thousand or more acres of good 



154 


The Errand Boy of 


land, with all their wives and children. If 
Dan had seen them, and if he had success¬ 
fully inquired why Monsieur La Blanche 
needed such liberal accommodations for his 
colored servants, he would have discovered 
that here was only a kind of half-way house, 
a temporary storehouse for the safe-keeping 
of some of the valuable black cargoes which 
from time to time were landed on the beach 
of Grand Terre Island. At the pier in this 
basin, moreover, had many a fine lot of im¬ 
ported Africans been sold to planter buyers 
from the interior. 

Dan knew nothing of the commercial 
character of the place he was in. He was 
charmed very much by the flowers and 
lawn and shrubbery and veranda, and he 
walked on behind Captain Hutton and Rous¬ 
seau, closely followed by Red Shirt Joe, while 
Black Sam went away with the boatmen to 
such quarters as might be accorded to human 
beings of their rank and complexion. 

“Captain Hutton,” said Rousseau, “we 
have no time to spare here. We will go 
to breakfast without ceremony. We have 



Andrew Jackson 


155 


been longer than usual on the way, by hav¬ 
ing to come by the Quereau instead of by 
one of the shorter bayous. I wished to 
avoid, not only interruption, but even obser¬ 
vation.” 

“ Very wisely, I am sure,” replied Hutton. 
“ I am glad that we shall get to Barataria 
unseen, — or as nearly so as may be.” 

“We are unreported, at all events,” said 
Rousseau, “ and that is of importance.” 

Dan heard without altogether understand¬ 
ing, and a feeling of awe was creeping over 
him as he stared at the elegance on all sides, 
while they entered the mansion and walked 
on into its ample dining room. 

There were no carpets, but the floor was 
well polished, and the white walls were orna¬ 
mented, here and there, with pictures and 
other works of art, such as might have been 
procured, if not painted, by successful priva¬ 
teers from Barataria. 

From the head of the long dining room 
table, as they entered, a well-dressed woman 
stepped forward to welcome them, and Dan 
hardly knew which to admire most, her per- 



The Errand Boy of 


156 

feet manners or the silver and chinaware on 
the table. 

Madame La Blanche was somewhat dark- 
complexioned, like her courteous husband, 
but she was handsome, and her jewels were 
costly. She smiled after a most gracious 
fashion, both to Captain Hutton and the rich 
young Tennessee planter who owned Black 
Sam. She even held out a many-ringed 
white hand to Red Shirt Joe, for he was 
introduced as a distinguished war chief of a 
powerful tribe; but all the while Dan was 
vaguely aware of a strangely cruel expres¬ 
sion around her mouth and in her eyes, and 
that there were occasional flashes in the lat¬ 
ter. He even heard the red man mutter to 
himself, “ Heap debbil squaw. Ki-a-wok ’calp 
her. Take hair when Jackson come.” She 
had not at all deceived him by her gracious 
display of hospitality. 

Fish, game, vegetables, fruits, all were of 
the best, the La Blanche cook was evidently 
a good one, but, at Captain Rousseau’s re¬ 
peated suggestion, the meal was eaten with 
almost an appearance of haste. 



Andrew Jackson 


157 


“We are to have fresh boatmen,” he said 
to Captain Hutton, as they arose from the 
table. “ Now for Barataria.” 

Madame had seemed deeply interested in 
the items of war and other news rapidly 
given her by Captain Hutton, and some of 
it had seemed to make her bite her lip. As 
for Dan, he was but a young fellow, alto¬ 
gether inexperienced, and yet he had not 
failed of noticing some things. 

“ They’re too awfully polite,” he thought. 
“ They treat Rousseau as if he were as big as 
General Jackson. All the niggers get out 
of his way as if he were on fire. Pierre 
Chanon himself is afraid of him. That 
woman is, too, but when Captain Hutton’s 
back was turned she looked at him as if she 
wanted to bite his head off.” 

It may have been that the great lady of 
the slave sale mansion regarded General Jack¬ 
son’s aide as a forerunner of the United States 
forces which, as she knew, were likely to soon 
break up forever the profitable business in 
which she and her husband were engaged. 
It was needful, nevertheless, that she should 



The Errand Boy of 


158 

keep up an outward appearance of cordiality, 
to the very moment when she waved her 
white handkerchief so gracefully from the 
veranda, in a farewell to Captain Rousseau. 

The scouting party from Nashville was 
quickly in the boat again, and six fresh, 
strong pairs of black arms were propelling 
her swiftly along the winding bayou. Now, 
however, Dan thought he saw his Seminole 
friend casting sharp, quick glances at Cap¬ 
tain Rousseau, and at the same time finger¬ 
ing the long handle of his tomahawk. 

“That Indian has seen something he 
doesn’t like,” thought Dan. “ What can he 
mean ? I’ll have my rifle ready, anyhow, if 
there’s anything coming. We’re going in 
among a lot of pirates, I suppose. I reckon 
I’m good for one of ’em, if there’s to be a 
fight. Red Shirt Joe is crouching there like 
a painter.” 

He had also been saying something to 
Black Sam, but not in French or English, 
and the African’s hand had gone at once to 
the hilt of his file-knife, as if he were half 
ready to draw it. 



Andrew Jackson 


*59 


“ That’s another bad sign,” thought Dan. 
“ At all events, none of the boatmen are 
armed. We could make short work of 
Pierre Chanon and Rousseau. — No! I 
reckon there isn’t any danger, just yet. 
Captain Hutton’s as cool as a cucumber.” 



i6o 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER IX 

BARATARIA BAY 

J UST as bright daylight came, Dan was 
thinking: “ I reckon we’ll be out o’ this 
crooked bayou before long. I want to see 
the bay and the Gulf and the pirate ships.” 

Or he might have added, “anything else 
that there is to see,” for all sorts of things, 
including fleets and armies, were chasing 
each other through his excited brain at the 
moment when the cutter shot out into the 
open water and Captain Rousseau re¬ 
marked : — 

“ My dear sir, here we are in Barataria 
Bay. Over yonder is Grand Terre. There 
are our cruisers, lying at anchor. If you 
please, I must stop and look at one of them 
that has just come in. She carries letters of 
marque and reprisal as a Venezuelan priva¬ 
teer.” 

“ And so she is at war with Spain,” said 



A 71 drew Jackson 


161 


Captain Hutton. “I have no objection. I’d 
like to board her with you.” 

“ You may find her worth seeing,” replied 
Rousseau. “ She may be part of your 
errand.” 

The crew pulled steadily on, and the cutter 
was steered toward a vessel which Rousseau 
had been examining through a glass. She 
lay apparently about two miles in from 
Grand Terre, and the distance between her 
and the cutter diminished rapidly. As they 
drew nearer, Dan became intensely interested 
in her appearance, but he did not know 
enough of nautical affairs to have described 
her. He could not have said : — 

“ Hermaphrodite brig. Six hundred tons. 
Four nine-pounder guns on each broadside. 
A twelve - pounder pivot gun amidships. 
Looks as if she were built for speed rather 
than for cargo. She carries the flag of the 
new republic of Venezuela.” 

She also looked as if she might be an un¬ 
pleasant acquaintance for a Spanish mer¬ 
chantman to meet on the high seas. Dan 
knew little enough of what is called privateer- 



162 


The Errand Boy of 


ing and had only a faint idea that there was 
supposed to be a legal limit to the operations 
of the Nueva Leon . 

“That’s a pirate ship, is it?” he thought. 
“ I hope Commodore Patterson or General 
Jackson will come and burn ’em all up, be¬ 
fore long. There’ll be a fight, too, and I’d 
like to be in it. I could kill a pirate as 
quick as I would a wolf.” 

At that moment his eyes had more than 
their usual glitter in them, and he was actually 
taking up his rifle when the cutter touched 
the brig. She seemed to be laden so heavily 
that she was low in the water, and there was 
no difficulty in getting on board. Red Shirt 
Joe was the first to reach the deck, and it 
occurred to Dan that the Seminole was with 
some effort suppressing a war-whoop. At all 
events, he went forward with the springing, 
elastic movement of a human panther, and 
his quick glances in all directions took in at 
once whatever there was to be seen. 

There were not many men to be seen, and 
it might be that most of the brig’s crew had 
gone ashore. One man in a battered naval 



Andrew Jackson 


163 

uniform which might be that of almost any 
country, came forward with his hat in his hand 
and politely welcomed Captain Rousseau and 
his friends, but he did not address the latter 
by any name when he spoke to him. Per¬ 
haps a finger on a lip had served as a signal 
for caution. For that matter, he did not 
speak either French or English, but a South 
American privateersman was quite likely to 
be still a Spaniard by birth, and there was 
nothing suspicious in that fact. 

Black Sam walked away at once for a 
look at the cannon, and the Seminole went 
with him, but the look on their faces had 
changed, for both of them understood Florida 
Spanish pretty well. 

“ They’re not so full of fight as they were,” 
thought Dan. “ What can it mean ? ” 

“Captain Hutton,” said Rousseau, “what 
do you think of the Nueva Leon ? ” 

“ She is a dangerous-looking craft,” replied 
Hutton. “ Have you many like her in your 
service, Monsieur Jean Lafitte?” 

A loud, clear laugh sprang from the lips of 
the asserted Rousseau, but Dan Martin was 



164 


The Errand Boy of 


about as much startled as if one of the brig’s 
cannon had suddenly gone off. 

“ You know me, then ? ” came quickly after 
the laugh of surprise. “ I might almost have 
expected it. General Jackson did not send a 
fool upon such an errand as yours. — Yes ! I 
am Jean Lafitte, and we are here because it 
is best for you and me to have a quiet talk 
in the cabin before you are seen by any of 
my friends at Grand Terre.” 

“ I very much desire a conference,” said 
Hutton. “ I must have Dan Martin with 
me, but the others may stay on deck.” 

“ It is better for you and me to talk with¬ 
out witnesses,” replied Lafitte, his smooth 
face clouding darkly. “ Do you not know 
that my brother is in prison in New Orleans? 
I am threatened with the gallows! ” 

“ Monsieur Lafitte,” said Hutton, calmly, 
“ take your man Chanon with you first, and 
hear all he has to say. I can relieve your mind 
entirely, when my turn comes. But I may be 
in need, hereafter, of being able to prove pre¬ 
cisely what is the agreement with you that 
I am about to make for General Jackson.” 



Andrew J a c k s on 


i6 5 

“ Good ! ” exclaimed Lafitte. “ Chanon, 
come with me and make your report.” 

“ Ay, ay, sir,” responded Pierre, in better 
spoken English than he had hitherto seen 
fit to use. “ Plaze the saints; I’ve a dale o’ 
things to tell yez.” 

Away he went with Lafitte, down the com¬ 
panionway, leaving Dan Martin in utter be¬ 
wilderment. 

“Captain Hutton,” he exclaimed, “did 
you hear that? He’s an Irishman.” 

“ Indeed I did,” laughed Hutton; “ he 
didn’t deceive me, at any time. I found out 
at Nashville that Pat Shannon had changed 
his name only just a little.” 

“How did you find him out?” asked 
Dan. “ He wouldn’t speak anything but 
French.” 

“Yes, he did,” said Hutton. “ I saw him 
looking at one of the Nashville girls, and 
he was saying to himself: ‘ She’s a swate 
colleen, this day. Begorra, but I’ve seen the 
double of her at Clancarty. It’s the rid- 
headed girruls that take me eye.’ After 
that, I didn’t care so much for his French.” 



The Errand Boy of 


166 


“ I reckon lie’s a pirate, for all that,” said 
Dan. “ How this ship is armed! ” 

“ Guns enough,” said Hutton. “ Pretty 
heavy ones too, for her size. Look yonder, 
at the heels o’ the masts.” 

Dan had already been looking, for there 
were racks full of muskets, pistols, pikes, axes, 
cutlasses, ready for use, as if the Nueva Leon 
were at that very hour ready to sail into 
action. 

“ She’s ready for a fight,” he said. 

“ So she is,” replied Hutton. “ She’d have 
men on board of her soon enough, too. The 
Baratarians are looking out for enemies, 
British or American; they don’t know 
which. We shall find their shore batteries 
ready, and I want to know what and where 
they are. Lafitte is prudent in getting 
ready beforehand to explain our visit, for he 
might not be able to restrain his desperadoes 
from knocking us on the head.” 

Black Sam and the Seminole had drawn 
near and were listening. 

“Ugh!” said the latter, “ Ki-a-wok count 
men on heap big canoe.” 



Andrew Jackson 


167 


He held up a hand with the fingers spread 
to make five, and the thumb of the other 
hand was added. 

“Six,” said Hutton. “ Is that all ? ” 

“ I heard ’em say so,” put in Black Sam. 
“ He say half dozen. W’ile you an’ Dan is 
down stairs, Joe an’ I watch out. We’ll put 
a bullet t’rough de fust pirate dat chippers. 
Kill ebery debbil of ’em — suah ! ” 

“ Don’t strike in a hurry,” said Hutton, 
gravely; “ that’s all. I think there is no 
danger whatever. Keep cool.” 

“Ugh! Good!” grunted Joe. “Ole chief 
want kill heap Barataria men.— ’Calp ’em!” 

The conference between Lafitte and Pierre 
Chanon, as he was still to be called, was not 
a long one, and they came on deck again. 

“ Captain Hutton,” said Lafitte, “ I am 
greatly gratified with what Chanon has told 
me. Will you now come below? I am 
quite willing that your orderly should come 
with you. He is to be trusted, undoubt¬ 
edly, or he would not be here.” 

“True as steel,”said Hutton, and Dan fol¬ 
lowed them, but he carried his rifle with him 



The Errand Boy of 


168 

as a companion from whom he did not care 
to be separated on board that brig. 

Black Sam and the Seminole sat down 
on the deck near the companionway, down 
which their two friends had descended. 
Chanon came and sat down by them, bring¬ 
ing with him two of the crew, and these 
were apparently Frenchmen,— as much so, at 
least, as himself. Any good judge of men, 
however, casting a critical eye over that 
group on the deck of the Nueva Leon , might 
probably have declared that, except for the 
effect of some well-aimed bullet, the black 
savage and the red were more than a match 
for the undersized quartette that sat around 
them. Sam and Joe were indeed unusual 
specimens of fighting capacity. Either of 
them, simply for knife or tomahawk work, 
would be a dangerous antagonist for several 
ordinary men. 

The chief played with his tomahawk 
handle as usual, and Sam fingered his knife 
hilt, but they talked on in a friendly way, 
nevertheless, about Barataria, the British 
fleet, and the news from General Jackson’s 



Andrew Jackson 


169 


army. The sailors were genuinely eager to 
hear, and it may be that every man of them 
understood how little profit he would have 
in an encounter with these two news report¬ 
ers. They had seen fighting, no doubt, and 
experience is worth something. 

The cabin below, into which Lafitte so 
politely invited his guests, was not large but 
it was well furnished. He had even ordered 
refreshments for them, but Captain Hutton 
firmly refused to touch any of the wines and 
liquors offered him. As for Dan, his reply 
was blunt enough. 

“ No, thank you, sir,” he said. “ I never 
drank a drop in my life. I don’t ever intend 
to drink, either.” 

“ Good ! ” laughed Lafitte. “ I will take 
a glass myself, to the health of General 
Jackson. — Now, Captain Hutton, I must 
ask you to lose no time.” 

“ Not a moment,” said Hutton, taking 
out of his breast pocket the papers given 
him by General Coffee at the Cumberland 
River landing. “ I will read you this. Then 
I will tell you, verbally, all there is to say 



170 


The Errand Boy of 


about either the general, or Governor Clai¬ 
borne, or Commodore Patterson.” 

“ I think I know their plans pretty well 
already,” said Lafitte. “ Read on.” 

His calm face did not change its expres¬ 
sion while Hutton was reading and speaking. 
At the end, he arose and said: — 

“ This is really better than I had expected. 
There will be no law proceedings afterward, 
by the United States, if I and my men come 
and serve with Jackson’s army. We shall 
have time to remove the greater part of our 
goods here. The Nueva Leon , and two 
more like her, recently arrived, will not land 
their cargoes here, but will sail for a safer 
harbor. My brother will soon be released 
from jail. As for our batteries, warehouses, 
and whatever is found here by the United 
States forces, — when they get here, — all 
must go. I have known, for a long time, 
that the end of our establishment would 
surely come. We are not altogether un¬ 
prepared for it, but we have some things to 
do yet. I shall now ask you to go with me 
to Grand Terre, and I will write an answer 



Andrew Jackson 


171 


to the general. My men will serve his 
artillery for him, and handle it well too.” 

“I’m glad of that!” exclaimed Captain 
Hutton. “ Permit me to say that I think 
you are showing good sense.” 

“ Good sense ? ” laughed Lafitte. “ Why, 
we cannot help ourselves. More than that, 
Captain Hutton, there is no living French¬ 
man that does not hate England. Just at 
this time she has humiliated our nation, 
so that we feel more than usually revengeful. 
As for our men of other nationalities, I have 
heard it said, without knowing how truly, 
that a number of them formerly did business 
among the West India Islands and were 
driven out by British gunboats. Some were 
killed, some were hung, and those who got 
away might be willing to shoot Englishmen.” 

“ I have no more to say,” replied Captain 
Hutton. “ Let us go on deck.” 

Up they went, and Dan did so with a queer 
impression that he was carrying up with him 
more than he ought to know. He said so 
to Captain Hutton, very cautiously. 

“ Know too much ? ” smiled the captain. 



172 


The Errand Boy of 


“ So do I, but we belong to General Jackson. 
Either of us ought to be ready to be shot 
rather than tell a military secret. That 
would be one way of being a spy. Keep 
your honor, my boy. You must not tell 
even your father or mother that we met 
Jean Lafitte here, or gave him any message. 
Your father’s hair would turn gray, if you 
should break your word of honor.” 

“ It won’t be broken,” almost gasped Dan. 
“ They may shoot me ten times.” 

“ You’re all right,” said the captain, kindly. 
“ And now you must keep your eyes about 
you. See everything.” 

The cutter and its crew were ready, and 
so were the two hatchway guards, red and 
black, who had risen to their feet so quietly 
and watchfully when Captain Hutton and 
Dan and Jean Lafitte came on deck. They 
seemed, nevertheless, to be under a strong 
impression that only one of the perils of the 
situation was over, and they were the first to 
step out of the boat when its nose went up 
the sloping beach of Grand Terre Island. 

Dan went ashore with his eyes about 



Andrew Jackson 


173 


him, but he saw nothing remarkable right 
away. 

The various vessels that he saw at anchor 
might or might not be the same kind as the 
Nueva Leon. They were not near enough 
for him to see whether or not they carried 
cannon. In this vicinity there were a few 
rude wharves and piers. He already knew 
that ships arriving were not accustomed to 
discharge their cargoes on the Gulf side of 
the island. They all came around into 
Barataria Bay, through a channel between 
the large island and a smaller one. There 
were, he had heard, several channels, but 
only one deep enough for sea-going ships, 
and this one was fairly well guarded by 
batteries of heavy guns. 

On more than one occasion ships of war 
had been driven away by these batteries, and 
one British naval expedition had suffered 
serious damages while attempting to enter 
the bay. 

After one swift survey, however, it was no 
wonder that Dan’s attention, or most of it, 
was absorbed by an unconscious study of 



174 


The Errand Boy of 


the singular man who had made himself 
the ruler of Barataria. How could so seem¬ 
ingly mild and courteous a man have gained 
the mastery of the ferocious desperadoes who 
manned the pernicious navy of this den of 
all evil? 

Dan was not by any means the first fellow 
to be fascinated by Jean Lafitte. All sorts 
of stories were told of his origin and of his 
manner of life before he made his appear¬ 
ance in New Orleans. Some of these stories 
afterward found their way into what is called 
history. One set of men who knew nothing 
about it declared that he and his two brothers 
came from Bordeaux, in France. Another 
set, equally positive, brought him from Brit¬ 
tany. The first lot stated that the Lafittes 
had been nothing more than common black¬ 
smiths in Bordeaux. This had at least a 
leg to stand on, for their first apparent busi¬ 
ness undertaking in New Orleans had been 
the management of an extensive smithy, 
from which they soon went out into wider 
and very different industries. It might be 
said, nevertheless, that if there were any 



A n drew Jackson 


175 


truth in this story, then a careful exami¬ 
nation of all the French blacksmiths yet 
remaining in Bordeaux would have discov¬ 
ered something remarkable. In losing Jean 
Lafitte, the iron hammerers of that seaport 
had lost the only blacksmith among them 
that was thoroughly acquainted with com¬ 
mercial affairs and particularly with the 
smuggling business. He was also the only 
nailmaker and horseshoer who could write 
so good a hand in such elegant language, 
doing it equally well in French, Spanish, 
English, or Italian, and who possessed such 
surpassingly good manners. The idea which 
tumbles down on examination is that the 
Bordeaux mechanics of that day were highly 
educated men, much more so than ever be¬ 
fore or since the departure of Jean Lafitte. 

That he was a man of unusual ability and 
some knowledge of law had been discovered 
by American governors and judges as well 
as merchants and by the military and naval 
magnates of more than one great nation. 
Something more had been found out by the 
smugglers, slave traders, privateers, and 



176 


The Errand Boy of 


pirates. These people learned, soon after 
he set out to become the business manager 
and dictator of the rough community at 
Barataria, that among his other accomplish¬ 
ments was the ability to draw a pistol some¬ 
what more quickly than another man and to 
fire it with sure and deadly effect. He had 
instantly shot down and killed the first 
pirate captain who ventured to dispute his 
supremacy. After that, he made his hold 
secure upon his reckless associates by pro¬ 
viding them with opportunities for selling 
their cargoes, of whatever kind. They would 
hardly have known what to do without him 
and without the peculiar skill he exhibited 
in dealing with custom-house officers and 
other severely honest men in power. No¬ 
body disputed that he paid bribes freely, and 
he also employed the most distinguished 
lawyers whenever their services were needed. 

Here he was, now, walking slowly and 
placidly along with Captain Hutton, followed 
by Dan Martin and his pair of remarkable 
savages. From several directions a number 
of eager-looking men, armed in full Bara- 



Andrew Jackson 


177 


taria fashion, were hurrying forward to meet 
him. At that very hour, if he could have 
known it, away back in the city of New Or¬ 
leans, in the house occupied by Governor Clai¬ 
borne, a number of gentlemen sat in council. 

“ Governor,” remarked one of them, “ I 
think Captain Hutton is taking a great risk. 
It is a serious question in my mind whether 
he and his party will ever manage to get out 
of that place alive.” 

“ Colonel Ross,” replied the governor, 
“ Hutton is a soldier. He goes there by 
order of General Jackson. I did not take 
the responsibility of sending him. The 
blood of the pirates is up a little, but I hope 
that Jean Lafitte will be able to protect him. 
If he should be murdered, however, it is no 
fault of mine.” 

“ Commodore Patterson,” continued the 
colonel, who seemed to be in an angry state 
of mind, “whether Hutton is killed or not, 
I hope there is no uncertainty as to what we 
intend to do with Barataria ? ” 

“Not a particle ! ” exclaimed the commo¬ 
dore. “It will all be done before Jackson 



1 7 8 


The Errand Boy of 


gets here. If he wants pirate gunners, and 
the Grand Terre batteries, we will have 
things ready for him. That nest must be 
cleaned out, though. The days of bucca¬ 
neering are ended.” 

“ So must the days of free smuggling,” 
responded the governor, with energy. “ Not 
only has it been a burning disgrace to us all, 
but it is a severe injury to all the honest 
merchants of Louisiana. They cannot com¬ 
pete with thieves and smugglers. The reve¬ 
nues of this port are little more than a third 
of what they would be if all the goods sold, 
up and down the river, had paid regular 
duties.” 

“ It is demoralizing to the last degree,” 
said the commodore. “ But that is nothing 
to the fact so many vessels bound here 
and there have never been heard from. 
They were not all lost in storms at sea. It 
is my opinion that some of the best of men 
and women have been made to walk the 
plank — not so long ago, either — by these 
devils and wolves that are ruled by Jean 
Lafitte and his brothers.” 



Andrew Jackson 


179 


“ But we can’t prove it,” said the governor, 
gloomily. “ The best we can do is to take 
General Jackson’s sensible advice. We will 
break up Barataria, and we will try to have 
as many pirates as possible shot down by 
the British when they get here.” 

“ I wish we could station them all within 
short range of British cannon,” exclaimed 
Colonel Ross, fiercely. “ I’d like to have 
them mowed down with grape and canister, 
seeing we can’t find any means of swinging 
them up on trees.” 

From all the remarks that were made, it 
was evident that the forces of the United 
States government were nearly ready to 
strike the proposed blow. The men who had 
the matter in charge were eager to make 
quick and thorough work whenever the order 
to strike should be given. 

Far away to the northward, only an hour 
or so later, a horseman drew rein in front of 
a log homestead among the Tennessee forests, 
and sent a loud hail in through the open 
door. It was at once answered by a young¬ 
ster, who came running out to say: — 



i8o 


The Errand Boy of 


“Hulloa! Mr. Hodges! They said you’d 
been to Nashville.” 

“ I’m back again, Jim,” replied Hodges, 
without any sign of dismounting. “ I want 
to see your father.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Hodges,” interrupted a female 
voice, anxiously, “ do tell me! Did you 
learn anything more about Dan ? ” 

“ That’s what I want to know,” came loudly 
from Captain Martin himself, as he came 
limping to the doorway, but not seeming, 
now, to need the help of a crutch. “ Let’s 
know! What did you hear ? ” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Hodges, “ ’twasn’t much. 
As near as I could make it out, Gineral 
Jackson sent him on ahead, to New Orleans, 
along with a Captain Hutton. He’s an aide- 
de-camp, kerryin’ despatches, I don’t know 
what — Black Sam went with ’em. They 
told me Dan sold his hoss to a land 
spekilator.” 

“ I told him to do that,” said Captain 
Martin. “ How does recruiting come on ? ” 
“ Thank God ! ” exclaimed Dan’s mother. 
“ I’m so glad to hear something, anything! ” 



A 7t dr ew Ja cks on 


181 


“ Jackson’s army? ” said Hodges. “ Well! 
it’s curious ’bout that. Kind o’ so. I was 
all the while slow to think he could git up 
one, but they say the men are cornin’. 
Well! Yes! I’ve ’bout made up my mind 
to go myself, jest as soon as I git my corn in. 
I won’t wait for hog-killin’ time. I’ll be able 
to leave the old woman enough to feed her 
and the children. I jest can’t go back on 
Andrew Jackson.” 

“ Hodges! ” exclaimed Captain Martin. 
“ If ’twasn’t for this leg o’ mine ! You see, I 
couldn’t get there. It’s hard on me. But my 
corn’s coming on fine. All the other crops 
are in, — mostly. Do you go! Go! I’d 
give almost anything if I could raise a com¬ 
pany and go with you.” 

“ O husband! ” murmured Mrs. Martin. 
“To think of my Dan, in New Orleans! 
I’m glad somebody’s there with him, — I do 
believe he can fight, too, and I’ll feel a great 
deal better, — now I know just where he is, 
and what he’s doing.” 



182 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER X 

THE BRITISH AT GRAND TERRE 

I F Dan Martin’s mother knew just where 
he was and what he was doing, he him¬ 
self was not so sure about it. Perhaps it 
was as well that she was too far away to see 
him. 

He was not thinking of his family. He 
had forgotten everything but the one tre¬ 
mendous and thrilling fact that he was here 
in Barataria, the world-famous den of all 
that was said to be left of the old-time buc¬ 
caneers. Year after year, ever since he could 
remember, and especially before the blazing 
logs of the winter fireplace in the Martin 
house, he had heard his father and mother 
and their neighbors while away the dull time 
by telling stories of land and sea. His 
mother and old grandmother Hodges, among 
others, were noted for the heaps of yarns 
which they had collected. Most of these 



A ndrew Ja ckson 


183 


related to wars with the British and the 
Indians, but there were also many which 
may have drifted in among the settlers of 
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, from 
the West India Islands and the Southern 
coast. Dan had heard, therefore, tales of 
Morgan, Kidd, Black Beard, L’Olonnois, and 
other rovers. Even since leaving home he 
had heard, from Captain Hutton himself 
and the Mississippi flatboat men, with some 
fulness and accuracy, the manner in which 
the black flag had at last been driven from 
the Atlantic. It was believed that all the old 
strongholds of the picaroons among the 
Antilles had been discovered, and that 
the last West India pirate ship had been 
captured or sunk. Among other things, he 
had been told that, when any craft of that 
kind had been captured, even if entirely 
uninjured, it was of no use to keep her for 
any honest occupation. No sailor could 
be induced to serve on board of her. She 
was a doomed ship, from which the bravest 
mariners would desert, as soon as they could, 
like rats from an old barn on fire. She 



184 


The Errand Boy of 


was believed to be haunted, accursed, and 
sure to bring bad luck. The days of period¬ 
ical literature and printed novels had not 
yet come, at least for Tennessee, but Dan 
Martin had enough stored in his memory 
to have been worked up into quite a library 
of stirring fiction. 

Two men who were themselves as good 
as a pair of novels followed with him the 
measured paces of Jean Lafitte and Captain 
Hutton. Black Sam and Ki-a-wok were 
silent, but their eyes were as busy as Dan’s. 

“ I will show you everything,” said Lafitte 
to the captain. “ It is best that you should 
be able to give General Jackson a full 
report.” 

“ Will not your men suspect me of being 
a kind of spy? ” asked Hutton. 

“ Nonsense ! ” laughed Lafitte. “ They 
know that every inch of this region has 
been visited by hundreds, of all sorts. There 
is no secret about it, but you had better see 
the batteries for yourself. Why, my dear 
friend, the planters come from as far up as 
the Ohio River, sometimes, to attend our 



Andrew Jackson 


185 


auction sales. We have really nothing for 
a spy to find out.” 

“You may have something to hide,” said 
the captain, thoughtlessly, “ unless you mean 
to have it all taken by the United States 
expedition.” 

“ Yes,” said Lafitte, in a low, guarded 
tone. “ When they come, as come they 
will, I think they will find considerable 
booty. It will not be advisable, nor possible, 
for us to take away everything. Had you 
not better make haste with your errand and 
get back to New Orleans? I beg that you 
shall be my guest for a day or two only.” 

“ That will do,” said the captain. “ I don’t 
care to know what you do with your shipping 
and barges, and so forth.” 

Jean Lafitte was in most affairs the ab¬ 
solute ruler of Grand Terre, but there are 
limits to the authority of almost any autocrat 
in the world. There were other men, sea 
captains, old rovers, and the like, whom he 
was continually forced to deal wisely with. 
Such men as these were at once aroused to 
angry suspicion of a vague kind, by the pres- 



The Errand Boy of 


186 

ence among them of an army officer in uni¬ 
form. Lafitte could see signs of a commotion 
among them, even as he walked on. 

It was prudent, therefore, to gather them 
at once at the house which served him for a 
residence, a business office, and a naval and 
military headquarters. This was about a 
half mile from the inner or bay shore, near 
the middle of this island. It was a long and 
low-built structure of wood. It was now in 
need of painting, but its interior was pro¬ 
fusely furnished, after a style which sug¬ 
gested that the various articles had been 
collected one at a time, rather than purchased 
regularly. 

Neither Black Sam nor the Seminole was 
invited to enter the house, but Dan went in 
with the captain, and he held his breath in 
a moment after he had crossed the threshold. 

It was not a very numerous company 
which had so quickly responded to Lafitte’s 
summons and assembled in the dining room 
of his island mansion. Perhaps there was a 
score of them, after all who were expected 
had arrived. Refreshments were liberally 



Andrew Jackson 


1 87 


provided, of course, and the air was blue 
with tobacco smoke. It seemed also to be 
made heavier by the sullen fierceness which 
glowered in the countenances of the men, as 
they stared at Captain Hutton and his young 
orderly. 

They did not seem disposed to make re¬ 
marks, after such introductions as Lafitte 
deemed it well to give. They were not 
talking men, as a rule, at any time, and at 
the present time not one of them knew 
exactly what to say. 

Dan Martins big stock of pirate stories 
came crowding into his mind, and all the 
spirit of adventure in him was heated to 
the boiling-point. He almost felt as if he 
could pick out Captain Kidd and Morgan 
and a lot of other bloody celebrities from 
among the scarred, bronzed, ferocious-look¬ 
ing buccaneers around him. 

“ Every man among them,” he said to him¬ 
self, “has scuttled ships and murdered all 
the people on board. They have seen men 
and women walk the plank, to go down into 
the sea or be torn in pieces by the sharks. 



The Errand Boy of 


188 

They would cut Captain Hutton’s throat and 
mine too, as quick as if we were chickens. 
I am right inside of the worst pirate hole on 
the earth! ” 

It was a terrible thing to feel sure of, but 
he saw that Captain Hutton was as cool and 
polite as if he had been in a parlor at Nash¬ 
ville, and he felt, with a great deal of satis¬ 
faction, that his own courage was in first-rate 
fighting condition. 

“ If anything happens,” he thought, “ I’ll 
send my first shot at their commander. I’ll 
put a bullet through Jean Lafitte for bring¬ 
ing us in here to be killed.” 

The pirate chief, however, was as bland 
and easy-mannered as ever, offering refresh¬ 
ments, shaking hands with newcomers, but 
all the while allowing one of his hands to 
wander frequently to the hilt of a pistol in 
his belt. Captain Hutton also was ceremo¬ 
niously polite to every red-handed ruffian 
introduced to him. Suddenly, Jean Lafitte 
turned around and rapped loudly upon the 
table. 

“Silence!” he commanded. “We have 




Jean Lafitte, the Pirate Chief. 







A 7i drew Jackson 


189 


here a messenger from General Jackson. 
The general is coming to take command at 
New Orleans. He sends us word that he 
is not coming as our enemy. He also sends 
us fair warning. We must now look out 
for ourselves. Sharp! No more vessels must 
unload at Grand Terre. The Nueva Leon 
and all others that are ready must sail with¬ 
out delay. Get together all the barges and 
empty the warehouses. We have plenty of 
time, thanks to the general. After that, by 
our agreement, every man who can must go 
out and help him beat the British. We 
shall save our property, and have free par¬ 
don and an easy time after we have defeated 
our old enemies.” 

A chorus of loud exclamations of surprise 
answered him, and it quickly changed into a 
round of hearty cheers, for all this was a 
great deal better than they had expected, 
and they interpreted it to suit themselves. 
Certainly, this smiling and politic leader had 
stretched to the uttermost whatever assur¬ 
ances had been given him by General Jack¬ 
son’s messenger, but this was not the time 



The Errand Boy of 


190 

or place for attempting to make any correc¬ 
tions. One important thing was accom¬ 
plished, at all events. The Baratarians 
were enabled or induced to separate in their 
minds General Jackson, whom they were 
asked to serve under, and either of their well- 
known foes, Commodore Patterson and Gov¬ 
ernor Claiborne. From these, as they already 
understood, they were to look for nothing 
but severe measures; but the general would 
soon be in control of everything and could 
then act independently. Moreover, the great 
Creek Indian fighter was a man they could 
all appreciate, and they were ready to put 
confidence in any promises he might choose 
to make. It was a matter of course, there¬ 
fore, that their feeling toward Captain Hut¬ 
ton and his party became friendly. 

The gathering broke up soon, for all who 
were there understood the meaning of the 
advice about vessels and warehouses. Even 
now, nevertheless, true to their lawless habits 
and reckless natures, they were not disposed 
to haste or overwork. They were willing to 
assure themselves that there would be time 



Andrew Jackson 


191 


enough for everything. All the more surely, 
therefore, would the Lafittes and a few of 
their confidential friends obtain the first use 
of all the barges and their black crews. It 
was not difficult to guess whose property 
w T ould soonest be taken away from Grand 
Terre, whether it went to plantations, up the 
bayous, or whether any of it found its secret 
way to New Orleans warehouses. 

“ Dan,” said Captain Hutton, as the strange 
assembly scattered, “go with Joe and Sam. 
See all you can. Lafitte and I are to take a 
look at the shipping and batteries. I wish 
there were more good guns to spare for our 
new works at the city. I’m afraid none 
could be carried there from this place, but 
we’re going to need every cannon we can 
get hold of. Every gunner, too.” 

Out went Dan, and Black Sam hardly 
tried to suppress his yell of delight at sight 
of him. 

“ Massa Dan ! ” he exclaimed. “ I t’ought 
you mought git yer t’roat cut in dah. Ki-a- 
wok say he kill a heap of ’em, suah, ’fore he 
leab dis yer island. Is things all right ? ” 



192 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Everything’s right, Sam,” replied Dan. 
“ We three are to scout all over the island.” 

“ Ugh! ” said the Seminole, “ Ki-a-wok see 
four on island from Florida. Two Red Stick 
Creek, two Spaniard, spy for redcoat. Want 
kill.” 

It was simply a fact. The British com¬ 
mander at Pensacola, with several hundred 
wild warriors at his disposal, was very natu¬ 
rally employing some of them as scouts in 
the enemy’s country. He had white spies 
elsewhere, no doubt, but a pair of half-breeds, 
acquainted with the coast and known of old 
to some of the buccaneers, were just the per¬ 
sons required to obtain for him information 
of the state of affairs at Grand Terre. 
Neither their coming or going would prob¬ 
ably be noticed by Lafitte and his asso¬ 
ciates. 

Whatever Captain Hutton and Jean La¬ 
fitte were doing that afternoon, Dan Martin 
and his friends were permitted to stroll 
around at will. They had chat after chat, 
too, with very remarkable new acquaintances, 
every man of whom was eager for the latest 



Andrew Jackson 


193 


news concerning either the British fleet or 
the American army. They seemed, indeed, 
to be already pretty well informed as to the 
land and naval forces of England which were 
intended to operate in the Gulf of Mexico. 
Dan asked questions on his own account, 
with some care, and he became impressed 
with the idea that all these men liked the 
proposal made by Captain Hutton to give 
them the future protection of General Jack- 
son. 

Red Shirt Joe shortly disappeared. It 
was not until near sunset that his two friends 
met him again, sauntering along in company 
with a wild-looking pair of Baratarians. He 
left them, but was as silent as a post until 
they three were out of the reach of listening 
ears. 

“ WhereVe you been ? ” asked Dan. 

“ Ugh! ” he replied, “ chief saw Creek 
spy." 

“ Hullo! ” said Dan. “ Did you find those 
fellows ? Where are they now ? ” 

“ Ugh! ” grunted the Seminole, disdain¬ 
fully. “ Half Red Stick Creek, half Span- 



i 9 4 


The Errand Boy of 


iard. Say Ki-a-wok turn redcoat again. 
Talk Proctor. Talk Tecumseh.” 

“ What did you say to ’em ? ” asked Dan. 

“No talk,” said the Seminole. “Heap 
fool Creek go drunk. Walk into swamp. 
Go sleep. No wake up. Spy gone.” 

That was enough. No further informa¬ 
tion could be expected from him, and Dan 
did not ask for any. It made him shudder 
to even guess what had become of the grim 
Seminole’s hereditary enemies. 

“ I wonder what the pirates’ll say when 
they find ’em,” he thought. “ It’s awful! ” 

He need not have worried himself. That 
was not a time when the dwellers on Grand 
Terre were likely to give much attention to 
the finding of a pair of red-skinned ad¬ 
venturers, stark dead and scalped, among 
the rushes near the eastern channel. The 
natural supposition would be that there 
had been a quarrel between them and 
some hot-tempered Baratarians, and that 
the strangers had gotten the worst of it. 
They were not the first unwise men to 
be found dead on that island, and rarely 



Andrew Jackson 


195 


had such things occasioned any general 
excitement. 

Night came, and it seemed to Dan to 
come slowly, for he found himself as tired 
as if he had been upon a long deer hunt in 
his Tennessee forests. In spite of that, how¬ 
ever, when at last he lay down on the bed 
assigned him in a wing of the mansion of 
Jean Lafitte, he could not at once go to sleep. 
The fact was that, if his own log house home 
were haunted with wild legends, like so 
many ghosts, what could be said about this 
place. Who could tell what deeds had been 
done under this roof, or what terrible tales of 
the sea had ended, so to speak, when the 
men who were concerned in them had 
reached this headquarters of the desperadoes 
of the Gulf and the Antilles ? 

It seemed a dark corner of the earth, made 
darker by invisible shadows. 

Dan did at last go to sleep, but before a 
great while he awoke. He wakened from a 
vivid dream of a fight at sea, and it seemed 
to him that he had actually heard the roar of 
cannon as the dream ship he was in, a United 



196 


The Errand Boy of 


States sloop of war, began to try her guns 
upon a monster that was flying the black 
flag, with its skull and crossbones. 

“ It was only a dream,” he said, sitting up 
in bed. “ But it was an awfully real dream. 
The pirates had just been sinking a merchant 
ship. Hark! What’s that?” 

Through the window near him, with its 
gay green lattice and mosquito netting, came 
at that moment the far-away roar of a heavy 
gun. 

“ What can it be ? ” exclaimed Dan. “ It’s 
the first cannon I ever heard. Tell you 
what! — something new’s coming. I won’t 
get up yet, though. I wouldn’t know which 
way it was best to go.” 

Down he lay again, listening intently, but 
he was indeed dreadfully tired. No other 
thunder came to keep him awake, and, before 
long, his eyes closed again. This time his 
slumber was dreamless, but there were other 
eyes which were not shut after the report of 
that cannon came. 

An elegantly furnished chamber had been 
allowed to Captain Hutton, and the brave 



Andrew Jackson 


197 


fellow had gone to bed as calmly as if he were 
in an eastern city hotel. He was a soldier, 
however, and he had arisen instantly at the 
first booming sound,—the one Dan had 
heard in his dream. He went to a window 
and was waiting for further developments, as 
much in doubt as his orderly concerning the 
meaning of a cannonade, then and there. A 
hasty step and a lighted lamp came into the 
room behind him. 

“Captain Hutton, my dear friend, I knew 
you would be disturbed.” 

“ What does it indicate, Monsieur Lafitte ? ” 
asked Hutton. “ Do your cruisers fire signal 
guns on arriving ? ” 

“No,” said Lafitte. “The firing is from 
our channel battery. The first gun sent me 
word that our scout boats report an armed ves¬ 
sel in the offing. The second, double guns, 
says that the stranger is an Englishman. I 
think you ought not to be here, in case of the 
arrival of British forces.” 

“Undoubtedly,” said Captain Hutton. 
“ My errand is done, anyhow.” 

“ It is completely done,” said Lafitte. “ If 



198 


The Errand Boy of 


you please, therefore, I will have a boat ready, 
at an early hour to-morrow morning, to take 
you to New Orleans.” 

“ It is my duty not to remain here an 
hour longer than is necessary,” said Hutton. 

“ Good,” replied Lafitte; “ but I will say 
this much more, I am not at all in fear of an 
actual attack at this date, by the British. 
We have already shown them that we can 
beat off anything but a much stronger force 
than they are likely to spare from their other 
plans, just now. At all events, I have one 
favor to ask. I may need to send, to you or 
to Governor Claiborne, messages in writing, 
or in words, which I dare not trust to any 
of my own men. I want you to leave here 
your orderly and his two servants, the nigger 
and the Indian.” 

“ Just the right thing! ” heartily responded 
Captain Hutton. “ Martin is a brave fellow, 
intelligent, trustworthy, and that pair can 
handle a canoe.” 

“ That is what I shall send them away in,” 
said Lafitte, “as soon as I know what this 
British arrival means. Will you be good 



Andrew Jackson 


199 


enough to take another nap now? I will 
have you aroused a little after daylight. We 
may know more then.” 

“ I need all the sleep I can get,” said Hut¬ 
ton, cheerfully. “ I don’t think keeping 
awake would do me any good.” 

“ Not any,” said Lafitte, as he left the 
room; and the thought of Captain Hutton 
was: — 

“ I’m glad the British are here. It will 
have a good effect upon the Baratarians. 
It gives them a sharp warning.” 

Dan Martin was not awakened as early as 
was his commanding officer. When he was 
summoned, however, he sprang to his feet 
with a vague idea that there was fighting of 
some sort on hand. His mind grew clearer 
while he was putting on his clothes, and the 
cannon report he had heard in the night 
was still in his ears when he hurried out into 
the veranda on that side of the house. 

“ The darky that called me said something 
about breakfast,” he remarked; but at that 
moment he was hailed with: — 

“ Dan! this way. Don’t say a word.” 



200 


The Errand Boy of 


Dan obeyed in silence, for within a few 
feet of him was Captain Hutton, followed 
closely by Ki-a-wok and Black Sam. These 
may have already received their instructions, 
but they listened intently while the captain 
informed Dan concerning his new duties 
and his own immediate departure. 

“ I’m ready,” said Dan. “We three can 
find our way through the bayous to the Mis¬ 
sissippi, I reckon.” 

“ Ugh ! ” said the Seminole. “ Heap boy. 
Ole chief know bayou. Keep hair on head.” 

“ Now, Dan,” said the captain, “watch out. 
Keep your eyes open. Don’t be seen by any 
Englishman if you can help it. Be ready to 
start at any moment. Go in and eat your 
breakfast. Only Lafitte himself and the 
crew of the boat that takes me know I’m 
getting away. Good-by! ” 

“Good-by, Captain Hutton,” began Dan, 
but the Seminole interrupted him. 

“ Ugh ! ” he said. “ Boy shut mouth. 
Hutton go.” 

Away walked the captain, and he was 
shortly joined by Jean Lafitte. Black Sam 



Andrew Jackson 


201 


remained outside while Dan followed an 
obsequious mulatto who offered to show him 
where he was to eat breakfast. 

He ate like a very hungry boy, in spite of 
the somewhat bewildering change in his 
circumstances; but hardly had he arisen from 
the table when he once more heard the roar 
of cannon. 

“ They ain’t shooting at anything, I 
reckon,” remarked Dan, aloud. “ The cap¬ 
tain said those others were only signal guns, 
and I’d be likely to hear more of ’em. They 
may be answering each other.” 

He was right in that guess. The British 
sloop of war Sophia , from the squadron at 
Pensacola, under command of Captain 
Lockyer, of the royal navy, had come to 
anchor off the mouth of the main channel 
leading into Barataria Bay. She was not 
within range of any of the shore batteries, 
and it was not yet known on the island, cer¬ 
tainly, whether her errand there was one of 
war or peace. She was, at all events, the 
strongest cruiser that had ever yet visited 
the “pirates’ home,” as some people called 



202 


The Errand Boy of 


the prosperous commercial establishment of 
the Lafitte brothers. Nevertheless, her 
sounding signals had been duly replied to by 
the battery guns, and nearly the entire popu¬ 
lation of Grand Terre was hurrying to the 
seaward beach to get a look at the unex¬ 
pected newcomer. Not counting colored 
men and women or other non-combatants, 
nor the crews of vessels preparing for speedy 
departure, there were on the island, that 
morning, over three hundred fighting men, 
well armed, and in a state of mind which 
bordered upon desperation. The presence 
of the Sophia , however, had a strong ten¬ 
dency to confirm them in any favorable 
opinions which they might be forming con¬ 
cerning the agreement with General Jack- 
son. All the more did it become apparent 
to Jean Lafitte, then and afterward, that 
the motley gathering under his command 
would not be likely to trust any British 
offers of conciliation, if such were to be 
made. There were too many bitter hatreds, 
old revenges, and national grudges in the 
fierce hearts of the Baratarians. 



Andrew Jackson 


203 


“ The fact is,” Lafitte said to himself, “ I 
believe that our best chance for really saving 
anything is to stick to Jackson. If we don’t, 
we may lose every dollar we have, whether 
it’s here on the island, or up among the plan¬ 
tations, or stowed in the New Orleans ware¬ 
houses.” 

So he began to feel a certain kind — his 
own kind — of patriotic devotion to the 
United States, and General Jackson. 



204 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER XI 


BRITISH DIPLOMACY 

HERE is an official record that the 



JL Sophia fired her signal guns off the 
island of Grand Terre on the morning of 
the 3d of September, 1814. This record, 
however, makes no mention of Dan Martin, 
Black Sam, or Red Shirt Joe, as being among 
the buccaneering community which gathered 
on the beach. 

The black man and the red were exchang¬ 
ing brief commentaries, now and then, but 
they were not speaking English except when 
the Seminole remarked: — 

“ Ugh ! Heap big canoe. Heap big gun. 
Red Stick Creek on redcoat ship. Kill 
’em! ” 

It appeared as if he were more and more 
definitely associating the British with his old 
enemies, in his revengeful mind. At the 



Andrew Jackson 


205 


same time, most of the buccaneers around 
him were as ready to kill as he was, and he 
might therefore feel an increasing war-path 
fellowship with them. As for Black Sam, 
anything in a red coat was an enemy of both 
himself and Andrew Jackson. He was patri¬ 
otic enough, so far as any required killing of 
British soldiers might be concerned, but 
there was another important feature of the 
situation to him. Whether or not he had 
been born in America, his parents or grand¬ 
parents had been born in Africa, and he was 
well aware of the general character of the 
slave trade. He was himself a runaway 
slave, and, since reaching Grand Terre, he. 
had visited the slave pens. 

He had found there several scores of 
recently arrived Africans, manacled, impris¬ 
oned, waiting for purchasers from the 
interior. He knew, therefore, by personal in¬ 
spection, that this was a depot of the Congo 
commerce, and that these Baratarians were 
negro stealers. He did not reason about it at 
all, but he decided that they were his natural 
enemies, and hated them to the best of his 



206 


The Errand Boy of 


ability. As he turned and looked at them, 
he grumbled: — 

“ I’d like to put a knife into ebery man ob 
’em. Shoot ’em. Drown ’em. I reckon ole 
Gin’ral Jackson’ll clean out dis place.” 

It made another bond between him and 
the American army, and he was also well 
aware that much of his present security from 
being manacled and sold “ up river ” belonged 
to the fact that he was regarded as the prop¬ 
erty of the Martin family, and in due attend¬ 
ance on his young master. 

Dan was staring hard at the Sophia. She 
was too far away for him to count her guns, 
but he was impressed with the idea that she 
was by all odds the largest ship he had yet 
seen. 

“ She could knock the Nueva Leon all to 
pieces,” he was thinking. “The United 
States hasn’t any war ship in the Gulf that 
can fight with her. It’s too bad that our 
country hasn’t any of the biggest kind of 
ships.” 

He had heard all about Commodore Perry’s 
victory on Lake Erie, and all the stories of 



Andrew Jackson 


207 


the brilliant battles of our young navy had 
been talked about from house to house along 
the Western frontier. His father, however, 
had fully explained to him the truth of the 
matter, and he knew that the United States 
was as yet no match for England on the sea. 
As for her land forces, the ideas prevalent in 
the West were not all such as were then held 
in the Eastern states or as afterward sneaked 
their libellous way into printed history. 

With clearer sight than that of some 
statesman, and many historians, the men of 
the West knew that the British land forces 
in America had been utterly defeated, after a 
few successes at the outset, like the fruitless 
captures of Detroit, Chicago, and other fron¬ 
tier posts. They had been driven out of 
Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Upper Canada, 
and their great league with Tecumseh and 
the redmen had been broken like a glass 
bottle. Their allies, the Creeks, had also 
been bloodily defeated. Their entire plan of 
operations at the North had miserably broken 
down. Their barbarously successful raid 
upon the unfortified city of Washington had 



208 


The Errand Boy of 


been useless as a military movement, and a 
stupid blunder politically. All that now 
remained to be done, apparently, was to 
defeat their last and colossal blunder of try¬ 
ing to take and hold the valley of the Missis¬ 
sippi from its lower end, after having been 
ignominiously driven out of its centre by 
General Harrison. 

“ Come, Martin,” said a courageous voice 
near him. “I want you in my boat. You 
must be able to report fully to Captain 
Hutton. There’s a boat leaving that ship.” 

There was a great jump at Dan’s heart, 
for not only here was a new and unexpected 
adventure, but he felt as if great honor had 
been conferred upon him. It was nothing of 
the kind, for it was only the cunning of Jean 
Lafitte to present an appearance of not con¬ 
cealing any of his operations from General 
Jackson. Away went Lafitte and Dan, 
therefore, to a large yawl that was waiting 
for them at the shore of the channel. 

Thus far, all the signals and other indica¬ 
tions were of a friendly character, but Jean 
Lafitte knew that every British officer, civil, 



Andrew Jackson 


209 


naval, or military, regarded him as an outlaw, 
fit only to be hanged wherever captured, with 
scanty ceremony as to any form of trial and 
conviction. 

The boat from the Sophia was rowed by a 
crew of eight British sailors. In the stern 
sat three men in brilliant uniforms. One 
was Captain Lockyer of the Sophia , a distin¬ 
guished and very capable officer. By him 
sat his second lieutenant, and with them was 
a captain from the army named McWilliams. 

Jean Lafitte’s boat was smaller, pulled by 
four Baratarian sailors, and his only attend¬ 
ant was Dan Martin, in whose brain was 
swimming around a wild question as to 
whether or not he was there to represent 
General Jackson and the United States. 
Dan had remarked that Lafitte was wearing 
the most expensive rig that could be made 
for him by a New Orleans tailor. His dia¬ 
mond pin was superb, and his ordinary cutlass 
had been replaced by an elegant dress sword, 
in a gold-mounted sheath. His face was all 
one smile of affability, but just behind the 
smile was a gray look, and his coal-black 



210 


The Errand Boy of 


eyes flashed fiercely, now and then, after he 
bade his rowers hold in and wait for the 
nearer approach of the strangers,—who were 
now in easy range of a nine-pounder cannon 
levelled at them from the channel battery. 

He was a man of extraordinary nerve and 
coolness. He was fully informed that the 
end of his small and lawless empire was near 
at hand. His life was in deadly danger from 
enemies of several kinds. He was convinced 
that he could expect from English authorities 
only a temporary truce, smooth words, fair 
promises, and then the guns of her cruisers and 
the sharp sentences of her courts. He was 
as sure, also, that Governor Claiborne’s pur¬ 
poses were inflexible, and that his Louisiana 
foes were bitterly determined upon vengeance. 

Nevertheless, his deep cunning told him 
that the greatest power of all, so far as his 
life and property were concerned, would, in 
a few days, be the arbitrary military authority 
of Andrew Jackson; and he wisely decided 
to trust the American commander-in-chief, 
whatever enticements might be held out to 
him by anybody else. 



Andrew Jackson 


21 I 


This was all a wonderful romance to Dan 
Martin. The tossing sea, upon which he 
had never floated; the beautiful ship of war, 
with the muzzles of her broadside guns 
showing grimly at her open ports; the pirate 
island, with its really dangerous and well- 
posted batteries; the great bay beyond, with 
all those privateers and smuggling craft, if 
such they were, riding at anchor, — here was 
Jean Lafitte, the famous merchant-pirate, and 
coming yonder, was the other boat, represent¬ 
ing the empire of Great Britain. 

Dan was shortly near enough to be able to 
admire the trim blue uniforms of the Brit¬ 
ish naval officers, with their queer, half-moon¬ 
shaped chapeaus, in strong contrast with the 
red and gold uniform and cocked hat of Cap¬ 
tain McWilliams. All were very fine, and 
the three wearers were good-looking men. 

They were now so close that Captain Lock- 
yer himself sent forward a loud hail. After 
giving his name and rank, he asked: — 

“Can you tell me if Mr. Jean Lafitte is 
now at Barataria ? ” 

“ He is, sir,” replied Lafitte. “ I have no 



212 


The Errand Boy of 


doubt that he will be glad to receive you at 
his headquarters. I will accompany you to 
the shore, and conduct you to the house.” 

“ Thank you,” said Captain Lockyer. “ I 
will come, with pleasure, for I very much 
wish to see him.” 

On they went, side by side, but not at once 
to the beach and the crowd, for Lafitte pru¬ 
dently led the way through the channel and 
into the bay, explaining that by so doing they 
would land very much nearer the hospitable 
mansion of Monsieur Jean Lafitte. 

As the two boats shot out into the bay, 
however, all reasons for further concealment 
disappeared; and Captain Lockyer was star¬ 
tled by a low, clear voice which came to him 
across the few yards of water between them. 

“Captain Lockyer,” it said, “I am Jean 
Lafitte. What are you here for ? ” 

“Ton my soul! I thought so! ” sprang 
from the bearded lips of Captain McWill¬ 
iams. 

Whatever may or may not have been the 
previous suspicion of Captain Lockyer, he 
preserved his coolness perfectly. 



Andrew Jackson 


213 


“ I am glad to meet you in precisely this 
way,” he said, at the same time holding up 
and presenting what seemed a somewhat 
bulky paper parcel. “ This is for you from 
my commander, Captain Percy, with full 
power from higher authorities; that is, 
from the representatives of his Majesty the 
king.” 

Perhaps the precise words and manner, 
somewhat bungling, indicated that he was 
internally more disturbed than he would 
have willingly confessed, but there were dif¬ 
ficulties in the mind of such a man as to 
dealings with pirates on their own ground, 
or water. 

Not that Jean Lafitte was understood to 
have ever commanded a ship. He was no¬ 
toriously a landsman, not a sailor. He was 
a merchant, a commercial agent or manager, 
distinguished from most other commercial 
magnates only by the nature of his business 
and by a readiness to shoot any of his busi¬ 
ness partners or employees who might ven¬ 
ture to dispute his authority as head of the 
house. 



214 


The Errand Boy of 


The boats came together, and Lafitte took 
the packet. It was addressed simply to “Mr. 
Lafitte,” and he at once decided that its con¬ 
tents were to be read and considered at his 
headquarters on shore. 

Those three English officers were very 
brave men, for they went on without a sign 
of hesitation, although Lafitte himself cau¬ 
tioned them to preserve silence in view of 
possible danger. They understood his mean¬ 
ing better when they neared the landing- 
place. Their coming had been watched and 
waited for. Most of the Baratarians were 
over on the seaward beach, but enough were 
here, for a number had raced across the island 
to meet the boats. Here they were, and even 
the British uniforms seemed to arouse their 
anger. Loud voices in several languages 
made mention of British naval doings in the 
West Indies and elsewhere, and especially 
of repeated blows at Baratarian prosperity. 
Even the recent communications of General 
Jackson, so far as they were known, added to 
the excitement, but the main thing was that 
England, to her great honor, had always been 



Andrew Jackson 


215 


the uncompromising foe of all law-breaking 
on the sea. She had done her duty in that 
matter, and had well earned the hatred of all 
buccaneers. 

The clamor increased as the boats reached 
the shore, but Lafitte had always a trusty 
bodyguard of stalwart rovers whose personal 
interests were tied up with his own, and who 
therefore obeyed him blindly. These men 
closed around him now and kept back the 
chattering mob until he had time to address 
them and bring them to reason. He was 
then able to convince them, of course, that 
any violence to his distinguished guests 
would bring at once to Barataria Bay the 
powerful British squadron at Pensacola. 
His argument consisted of heavy guns and 
many of them, accompanied by a strong force 
of British marines and Creek Indians. His 
authority seemed to be pretty well restored as 
soon as his outlaws took time to consider and 
comprehend the situation. Sullenly, gloom¬ 
ily, with curses on their lips, and weapons half 
drawn from the sheath, they drew aside and 
permitted Lafitte to conduct the Englishmen 



2 l6 


The Errand Boy of 


to his quarters. The next persons behind 
them, as they went, were Dan Martin and 
his comrades. 

“Ugh!” growled the Seminole, “’calp ’em 
all. Take redcoat hair. Kill a heap!” 

“ Martin,” said Lafitte, unheard by any but 
these two, “keep near the house. I shall want 
you. I can’t say how soon. Tell Sam to 
have that canoe ready. Nobody must see 
you when you go away.” 

“ All right, sir,” replied Dan; and Sam 
said: — 

“Canoe ready now, sah. Yes, sah. I’s 
ready, too, an’ Joe. We’s youah men, sah.” 

The British officers, steady-nerved veter¬ 
ans that they were, behaved admirably, but 
they followed their host somewhat closely as 
they accepted his polite invitation to walk 
into his house. They could not feel entirely 
sure of his control over the miscellaneous 
crew that swarmed in the verandas and 
around the building. 

A dinner had been ordered in advance, 
and the guests did not have long to wait 
before they were ushered into the dining 



Andrew Jackson 


217 


room. Here they could hardly repress their 
exclamations of astonishment. The skilful 
cooks of the ruler of Grand Terre had done 
their best. Game was in season and there 
were several kinds on the table, both flesh 
and fowl. The finest shell-fish and game 
fish, with abundant fruits, choice wines, un¬ 
surpassed cigars, were offered them by polite 
servants, and there was no fault to be found 
with the silver and china ware. All this 
may have suggested to them, however, that 
the peculiar commerce of Barataria was 
altogether too profitable to be permitted any 
longer by the military and naval servants of 
his Majesty the king of England. 

The dinner lasted long, for many things 
could be discussed conversationally. It was 
over, at last, and Lafitte was ready for the 
consideration of the several important docu¬ 
ments delivered to him. 

One of these was a copy of the sounding 
proclamations which had been addressed to 
and circulated among the people of Louisi¬ 
ana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Territory 
of Mississippi; calling upon them to throw 



2l8 


The Er rail d Boy of 


off the oppressive rule of the ill-starred re¬ 
public of the United States and return to 
their ancient allegiance to the British crown. 
These publications had already been the sub¬ 
ject for endless fun among General Jackson’s 
riflemen. They had been signed and issued 
by a Colonel Edward Nichols, as the ac¬ 
credited agent of Great Britain in this part 
of America. 

The second document was similarly signed 
and did great credit to the persuasiveness of 
Colonel Nichols. It called upon Lafitte and 
his brave followers to enter the service of 
England. Jean himself was promised the 
rank of captain, with pay, and his subordi¬ 
nates were in like manner to have British 
commissions in accordance with their pres¬ 
ent grades in the Baratarian forces, with 
grants of lands, as soon as the said lands 
should be duly won from the Americans. 
All the Grand Terre batteries and shipping 
were to be transferred to Great Britain, at 
full prices for each separate article, no matter 
where it originally came from. The Bara- 
tarians, of course, were to give up their pres- 



Andrew Jackson 


219 


ent business and were to agree not to do 
any more harm to English or Spanish com¬ 
merce, whatever ruin they might work for 
that of the United States in this war. 

“ That is,” thought Lafitte, “ we are to 
be wiped out, anyhow, and then we are to 
share the luck of General Pakenham and 
his army, whether it is to be good or bad.” 

A third document was a capital appendix 
to the brilliant offers of Colonel Nichols. It 
was a general address from Captain Percy, 
of the British navy, to “the inhabitants of 
Barataria,” whatever might be considered 
the boundaries of that great nationality, set¬ 
ting forth some of their evil deeds and de¬ 
manding that they should make immediate 
reparation for the same, under penalty of 
utter destruction if they refused. It also 
offered them free pardon, if they should at 
once enter, for a limited time, the service of 
the king. 

“This,” thought Jean Lafitte, “lets the 
entire cat out of the British bag.” 

A fourth document was only a copy of 
Captain Lockyer’s general instructions from 



220 


The Errand Boy of 


Captain Percy, his superior officer, command¬ 
ing the squadron at Pensacola. 

It spoke of several things which were to 
be done after the proposed capture of Mobile, 
but it did not suggest any reason why a 
sound-minded British commander should 
waste his precious time at Mobile, instead 
of pushing on at once to New Orleans and 
occupying that place before the arrival of 
General Jackson. This is a matter which 
has never yet been explained. It was one 
of the many curious puzzles on both sides 
of the blundering War of 1812. 

Jean Lafitte spoke with the most profound 
politeness of these several propositions. He 
made so strong an impression upon Captain 
Lockyer that the latter joyfully added a prom¬ 
ise of thirty thousand dollars in cash, in ad¬ 
dition to the captaincy, the free pardon, and 
the captured Louisiana plantation. Beyond 
a doubt, it was all very tempting, or it might 
have been so to any man less positive than 
was Jean Lafitte in his conviction that An¬ 
drew Jackson would be able to defeat the 
British forces at New Orleans. 



Andrew Jackson 


221 


“ Besides,” thought the calculating Bara- 
taria merchant, “ I have a great deal more 
than thirty thousand dollars’ worth stored 
there now. It will all become British army 
plunder if General Pakenham should whip 
General Jackson.” 

Something like a strong feeling of bucca¬ 
neer American patriotism grew upon him 
while he was making his shrewd cash and 
other calculations. Still, he assented, with 
apparent cordiality, to whatever Captain 
Lockyer had yet to say. Then he pleaded, 
with a good show of reason, that all this was 
very sudden, and that he himself was not 
altogether an absolute monarch in the empire 
of Barataria. He must have time given him 
for reflection, and he must also consult with 
some of his most confidential and influential 
associates. One of these was in a vessel out 
on the bay. No objection could be made, of 
course, and away he went, the British officers 
remaining at his headquarters. Somehow 
or other, he seemed to return only just in 
time to protect them from what threatened 
to be a more dangerous tumult than the first, 



222 


The Errand Boy of 


among the boisterous Baratarians. He de¬ 
clared then that the personal safety of his 
guests required their immediate return to the 
Sophia. Lafitte himself accompanied them to 
their boat, and they may have been well pleased 
when they were actually rowing through the 
channel from the bay to the Gulf and were 
beyond reach of the guns of, for instance, 
such peaceful traders as the Nueva Leon . 
There were other craft there that were as 
like her as two peas, and all were manned 
by seamen whom Andrew Jackson was will¬ 
ing to enlist because of their known practice 
and skill in handling cannon. Dan Martin 
had waited and followed, according to orders, 
and he saw the British ambassadors rowed 
away to rejoin their ship of war. He was 
otherwise alone, however, for Black Sam and 
the Seminole had disappeared. 

“ Martin,” said Lafitte, “ I am very glad 
you are here. I have no time to lose, nor 
you either. There will be a packet of de¬ 
spatches ready for you as soon as I can write 
the letters that I must send to New Orleans. 
It will be as much as your life is worth to 



A 71 drew Jackson 


223 


have it known, for some of my men are get¬ 
ting crazy. Not a soul must even suspect, 
or you will have your throat cut by some 
stupid fellow before you can get away from 
Grand Terre. Don’t stay too near the house. 
I will send for you. My boy, I will give you 
five hundred dollars if you will get one paper 
to Captain Hutton!” 

He was accustomed to the giving of bribes, 
but such an offer at this time may have been 
a betrayal of the strong anxiety that was in¬ 
creasing upon him. As for Dan, he opened 
his eyes in utter astonishment. 

Five hundred dollars ? Why, at the cur¬ 
rent price of Tennessee land, that would 
give him a farm of over three hundred acres, 
all paid for. It stunned him for a moment, 
but a hot flush came into his face, for some¬ 
thing seemed to tell him: — 

“ Dan, your father’d rather see you die than 
have you take a bribe! ” 

“No, Mr. Lafitte,” he said firmly, “ I’m a sol¬ 
dier. I don’t want any pay fordoing my duty. 
I belong to General Jackson — I’ll see that 
Captain Hutton gets your despatches, though.” 



224 


The Errand Boy of 


Lafitte stared at him curiously, and then 
he walked away without another word, for he 
may not have been altogether unable to un¬ 
derstand a point of honor. 



Andrew Jackson 


225 


CHAPTER XII 

THE CANOE PARTY 

D ARKNESS settled at last over the 
wide waters of Barataria Bay, over 
Grand Terre, and the bayou-threaded Delta 
of the Mississippi. The Sophia lay idly at 
her anchorage, well out, but in a position 
from which her guns commanded the mouth 
of the channel. That was the extent of her 
control, however, for there were other ways 
of escape from the harbor of the buccaneers. 

There were lights shining from the win¬ 
dows of the Lafitte residence and a number 
of other houses. In more than one of these 
were gatherings of the Baratarians for angry 
consultation concerning the events of the day 
and their own rapidly clouding affairs. The 
immediate friends of the Lafitte brothers 
were busy among those coteries, and the 
tide of public opinion was setting strongly 
in favor of leaving all things in the care of 



226 


The Erra7id Boy of 


Jean Lafitte, as usual. His eldest brother, 
Pierre, was temporarily absent, and the sec¬ 
ond, Dominique, was in jail at New Orleans. 

Among some dense rushes at the shore of 
the eastern end of Grand Terre Island a 
bark canoe lay waiting with two men in it. 
The canoe had a somewhat elderly appear¬ 
ance, but it was in good order. It was such 
an affair as might have been constructed by 
the Natchez Indians, before their overthrow, 
or it may have wandered into the Delta from 
among the Creeks or other tribes along the 
shore of the Gulf of Mexico. 

“ Ugh ! ” said one of the men. “ Hark ! 
Boy come! ” 

“ Keep ’till,” growled Black Sam. “ Dan 
hab got away from Lafitte. Ready now! ” 
Stooping, yet running, half breathless with 
excitement and exertion, Dan Martin came 
hurrying toward the canoe until he was 
somewhat checked by the rushes. 

“Sam! Joe!” he said eagerly, “push off 
as soon as I’m in. I’m followed! ” 

“ Quick! ” said Sam. “ We’s ready! ” 

In went Dan, sitting down at once in the 



Andrew Jackson 


22 7 


middle, and the canoe began to move, for the 
paddles were at work. 

“We have him! ” exclaimed a hoarse voice 
just beyond the nearest rushes, and a dark 
form glided swiftly out of them, followed 
closely by two others. 

A hand was laid upon the stern of the 
boat and fierce words in Spanish were 
accompanied by the gleam of an uplifted 
cutlass. A bearded face appeared, dimly, 
for a moment, but there was heard a low, 
dull sound, a thud, and the face disappeared. 
Away shot the canoe, driven by the strong 
arms of Black Sam, while the Seminole put 
down his tomahawk to take up his paddle, 
uttering no sound but a hoarse “ ugh! ” 

In a moment more, several fiercely wrath¬ 
ful voices were pouring forth execrations, 
as a group of disappointed Baratarians ex¬ 
amined the cloven skull of their too hasty 
comrade, lying among the rushes. 

As soon as Dan and his friends were 
well out into the darkness, there was little 
danger to them from firearms, if any had 
been used; but the Baratarians did not try 



228 


The Errand Boy of 


their pistols, with the whole bay for a target. 
They had no boat at hand and immediate 
pursuit was out of the question, but, at 
the moment, for some inscrutable reason, 
this affair also was charged by them to the 
account of Captain Lockyer and his embassy. 

Perhaps only the slain man himself had 
really identified Dan Martin and his friends. 
To the others, the canoe had been a British 
boat, manned by spies from the Sophia, 
and it was so reported to Jean Lafitte, 
shortly afterward. 

“ If you are right about it,” he replied very 
quietly, “you should not have allowed them 
to escape. As to the man-of-war, you will 
soon see that I can manage to send her 
away. Then we shall have all the time 
we need to take care of ourselves.” 

Their confidence in the subtlety and other 
resources of their business manager grew 
stronger than ever as they listened. Not one 
of them suspected that their escaped British 
boat was already entering Bayou Quereau, 
carrying Jean Lafitte’s despatches to the New 
Orleans authorities and General Jackson. 



A ndrew J a ck s on 


229 


Dan Martin knew something about canoes. 
He had often been in a dugout, but this was 
his first ride in a clipper made of birch bark. 
His first mental exercise, after his narrow 
escape from the Baratarian’s cutlass, was 
a wondering at the speed with which that 
canoe could be paddled by the two strong 
experts who were now sending it along 
over the water. It might be that a whole 
tribe of red men could have been searched 
without discovering another pair who could 
do quite so well with hollow bark and 
paddles. 

“No feller kitch up wid us,” cheerfully 
remarked Black Sam. 

“ Good! ” said the Seminole. “ Heap 
dark. Watch out. See more boat.” 

His meaning was this. The water of the 
bay was quiet. So far as they knew, they 
had not been noticed by anybody on board 
any of the vessels at anchor. Other beats 
were all the while coming and going be¬ 
tween these and the shore, without question¬ 
ing or interference. There was no sort of 
harbor police on duty. The one point of 



2 30 


The Errand Boy of 


interest was, however, that a number of heav¬ 
ily laden barges had now been discerned, 
creeping away toward the northerly side 
of the bay. It might be that these were 
conveying no more than their customary 
freight, destined for New Orleans and else¬ 
where. Or they might contain goods which 
were removing in consequence of the stern 
warnings received by Jean Lafitte. At all 
events, none of them could catch up with 
the canoe. They put a thought into the 
minds of her crew, nevertheless. What if 
similar barges, manned by reckless men, 
were already ahead of them ? If this were 
so, and if there were pirate barges in Bayou 
Quereau, there might be serious difficulties 
before them. 

Dan Martin had no watch, but he was 
sure that hours had gone by, after leaving 
the bay, and it occurred to him that he must 
be drawing near the La Blanche place. 
He said so to his companions. 

“ Ugh! ” grunted the Seminole. “ Boy 
wait. Lie down. Sam lie down. Joe 
paddle.” 



Andrew Jackson 


231 


In the very moment of following his 
instructions, Dan saw lights, like swinging 
lanterns, a little distance ahead, on the left, 
and he remembered the pond-like basin in 
front of the La Blanche wharf. 

“ Massa Dan,” said Sam. “ Lie low, jes’ 
now. See Joe.” 

Very little of the Seminole could have 
been seen, indeed, by anybody outside of the 
canoe. He was crouching in the stern with 
only his head and arms above the edge of 
the bark. The movement of the canoe was 
slow now, and it was creeping along the 
reedy margins so closely that it must have 
been pretty well hidden. 

Several minutes passed, and for Dan to 
lie still any longer was almost impossible. 

“ I’ll just lift my head,” he thought. 
“ It isn’t any bigger than Joe’s.” 

He cautiously raised it and looked. Here, 
indeed, was the basin. Over there was the 
pier, and beyond it was the mansion of the 
successful aristocrat slave-dealer and his 
stately, hospitable, handsome wife. At the 
pier, however, were moored three barges 



232 


The Errand Boy of 


and with these were several smaller boats, 
like yawls from merchant ships. There were 
a number of lanterns. What was more im¬ 
portant, a bright bonfire had been kindled 
on the shore between the pier and the house. 
By the glare from this fire, Dan saw a double 
file, a “coffle,” of naked blacks, male and 
female, driven along, lashed onward from 
the barges and the pier, toward the man¬ 
sion. 

“ They are going around to the slave pens 
in the rear,” thought Dan. “ Jean Lafitte 
can save all that kind of property. He can 
move it easier than he can some of his other 
goods. I reckon every slave’ll be gone from 
Grand Terre before any British or American 
forces get there.” 

“Ugh!” said the Seminole. “Watch out. 
See boat come. Keep ’till, now.” 

He began to ply his paddle more vigor¬ 
ously, and the canoe slipped rapidly along 
among the shadows of the bank. There was 
no help for it, however. The vivid glow of 
the bonfire shot across the basin, and there 
were unshadowed places which the canoe 



Andrew Jackson 


2 33 


must pass. Suddenly loud shouts arose 
among the men who were on the barges and 
the pier. 

“ They’ve seen us ! ” exclaimed Dan, and 
a stern, resonant voice came to them across 
the water, commanding them to halt. 

“ Come over! ” it added. “ Pull in this 
way, or I’ll send a bullet through you! ” 

Fierce shouts and profanity followed the 
summons, but Black Sam was up now, and 
two paddles were instantly at work. So, at 
the same moment, were four oars in one of 
the yawl boats, but no answer was sent back 
to the summons. 

Bang — bang — bang — pistol shots first, 
then the louder reports of muskets, and even 
the cracking of rifles, told in what deadly 
earnest were the Baratarians. Dan heard 
the whizzing of bullets over his head, and 
saw the water spatter where they struck. 

“ One ball has hit the canoe,” he said. 
“ One more. Tore a hole too. Those fel¬ 
lows are good marksmen. It’s an awfully 
short range. Glad it isn’t daylight.” 

Well he might be, and also that the fire- 



234 


The Errand Boy of 


arms of that day required considerable time 
for reloading. Every gun-barrel that was 
emptied in that hasty volley was of no more 
use until powder and ball should be put into 
it again, and its clumsy flint-lock duly primed 
for shooting. 

That was what saved them. That and 
the fact that no mere yawl, constructed for 
safety in rough sea water, could win a race, 
a stern-chase race, with an Indian canoe, 
paddled by Ki-a-wok and Black Sam. 

In a minute they were out of the basin 
and were rushing along through the half 
darkness which brooded over the narrow 
bayou, while a shrill Seminole war-whoop, 
first, and then a long-drawn, mocking Afri¬ 
can yell from Black Sam, went back to the 
ears of the baffled Baratarians. 

“ Ugh ! ” said the Seminole. “ Make ’em 
heap mad. Watch out now. Mebbe more 
boat ahead.” 

“ S’pose we ketch up wid one,” said Sam. 
“All right. We tell ’em we’s gwine on an 
errand foh Jean Lafitte. Den if dey’s not 
satisfy, we kin shoot quick. I’s ready. I 



Andrew Jackson 


235 


don’ want no pirate a-cuttin’ my t’roat. 
Massa Dan, is youah rifle primin’ all right ? ” 

Dan had been examining it, hunter-like, 
and he reported well of it. So he did of 
both the other rifles and his belt pistols. On 
the whole, therefore, that canoe might be con¬ 
sidered a pretty well-armed cruiser, for her 
size and tonnage. 

How far they were followed by the boat 
from the La Blanche place they had no 
means of knowing, but at the end of a couple 
of miles their speed was slackened. From 
this point onward haste was of less value 
than caution, and the Seminole insisted upon 
changing places with Black Sam. The latter 
readily yielded his place at the prow, for he 
had more confidence in the red man’s eyes 
than in his own, or any other man’s. 

There were clouds in the sky, and it would 
not have been easy to find a gloomier ribbon 
of dark water than was now the bayou that 
was winding along so sluggishly between its 
borders of reeds and forest. 

“ Ugh ! Heap light! ’Top! ” came sharply 
from Red Shirt Joe, and the canoe was halted. 



236 


The Errand Boy of 


At their right,almost invisible until reached, 
was one of the innumerable side openings 
which characterize some of the ribs of the 
water-skeleton called the Delta. Without 
a moment’s delay, Black Sam steered the 
canoe in, as the Seminole whispered: — 

“ Quick, Sam! Heap quick,” at the same 
time picking up his rifle. 

In an instant they were completely hid¬ 
den, and in another a sharp-nosed rowboat 
went by at speed. 

“ Kill them! ” shouted an excited voice in 
French. “We saw Jackson’s officer last 
night. The others were only left at Grand 
Terre for spies on us.” 

“ Cut their throats,” yelled another. “We 
shall meet them before long. They can’t 
escape from us.” 

Four men only were in that boat, and 
they seemed to have a definite purpose of 
their own. They were rowing vigorously, 
as half-tipsy desperadoes might, when on 
their way to a bloody revenge of any kind. 

Out into the bayou, at that moment, shot 
the canoe, to the great surprise of Dan. It 



Andrew Jackson 


237 


went as if of its own volition, but Black 
Sam had heard words which Dan did not 
understand. He knew more the next mo¬ 
ment. Hardly were the rushes cleared, 
before the Seminole’s rifle cracked and a 
loud yell from the Baratarian boat answered 
the report. Before Dan could make up his 
mind whether or not to fire, Black Sam had 
imitated the Seminole. It had been at very 
short range, or even such experts might have 
fired in vain; but four men, sitting close 
together, make a fairly wide mark, and both 
bullets seemed to hit. Whether the hit men 
were killed or only wounded it was no time 
to inquire, and the canoe sped on, followed 
by a couple of random shots, but not by any 
buccaneer boat. 

“ I reckon we’re safe,” shouted Dan. 
“ Now for New Orleans. Lafitte told me 
we wouldn’t meet any custom-house boats 
among the bayous. They stick to the main 
river.” 

“ Dey’d nebber trouble us, nohow,” said 
Sam. “ We isn’t pirates. We’s Gin’ral 
Jackson’s men.” 



238 


The Errand Boy of 


He said it with manifest pride and satis¬ 
faction, and it looked as if Dan had really 
needed to be put in mind that all the custom¬ 
house officers were on the same side with 
himself. 

“ Anyhow,” he remarked, “ I wish I knew 
what Jean Lafitte’s doing, — and those 
British officers and their ship.” 

“ I reckon dey isn’t doin’ nothin’ sah, at 
dis time o’ night,” responded Sam. 

Something important was doing, in spite 
of Black Sam’s opinion to the contrary. 
Away back, in a closed room of his house on 
Grand Terre, sat Jean Lafitte, and the lamp¬ 
light on his gloomy face brought out every 
shadow of its frequently changing expres¬ 
sion. A cocked pistol lay by the lamp, and 
a bare cutlass, as if he was not feeling alto¬ 
gether secure from intrusion. A pen was in 
his hand, for he was carefully studying the 
terms of a letter which he proposed sending 
to Captain Lockyer in the morning. It was 
a remarkable literary production. It was 
preserved, in original and in copy, and it 
may now be read in the published records of 



Andrew Jackson 


239 


those eccentric negotiations. It asked the 
kindly consideration of the British com¬ 
mander for the difficulties under which the 
writer was laboring from the insubordination 
of a very few of his followers whom he would 
now speedily get rid of. Therefore a delay 
was requested, but only of a fortnight, that 
the Lafittes might prepare for a full compli¬ 
ance with the terms of alliance offered them. 
At the end of that time they would be ready; 
and the subtle Jean even named the spot, at 
the eastern end of the channel, where at that 
day he would be glad to meet a man in whom 
he had such implicit confidence as he had in 
Captain Lockyer. Whether the author of 
this letter had been brought up in a black¬ 
smith shop, or whether, as is more likely, he 
had obtained a good education in the count¬ 
ing-room of some French commercial house 
doing business with smugglers and the like, 
he was a born diplomatist of no mean ability. 

Morning came, the 4th of September, and 
a boat went to the Sophia , carrying the 
thoughtfully manufactured epistle of the 
buccaneer merchant of Grand Terre. It 



240 


The Errand Boy of 


was received, it was considered, and Captain 
Lockyer promptly replied. He agreed to 
the arrangement proposed, and promised to 
return at the end of fifteen days. He might 
well have done so, for not only would he 
thereby have secured the services of useful 
ships and men, but a strong British post 
would have been obtained, and nobody knew 
exactly how much trouble it might afterward 
give to the American army. There would 
surely have been batteries planted to com¬ 
mand Barataria Bay as well as the seaward 
beach and channel, while all the bayou sys¬ 
tem, to the near neighborhood of New Orleans, 
above and below the city, would have been 
open to British expeditions, guided by men 
who knew every square mile of the Missis¬ 
sippi Delta. After all, the price offered for 
such a victory does not seem too large; but 
General Jackson had provided, beforehand, 
that his antagonists should not be compelled 
to pay for Barataria. 



Andrew Jackson 


241 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE ARMY AT MOBILE 


“ T^\AN MARTIN, you and your men 
-L/ must get ready to go with me to 
Mobile. The general is there. I must de¬ 
liver those despatches without any delay.” 

“ General Jackson ? Mobile ? ” stammered 
Dan. “ How did he get his army there as 
soon as this, sir ? ” 

“He didn’t!” exclaimed Hutton, fiercely. 
“ The old hero had to dash down across 
country almost alone, they tell me. I hope 
he got there in time to save the fort. He is 
the army.” 

“ Are we to go on horseback ? ” asked Dan. 

“ We shall have good horses,” replied Hut¬ 
ton. “ We will ride hard, if we kill them all. 
I have sent Pat Shannon back with letters to 
Jean Lafitte. I say, how did you get your 
canoe over into the Mississippi ? ” 

“ Why,” said Dan, coloring, “ we came to 



242 


The Errand Boy of 


a place where it’s only a couple of miles 
across, and Sam and Joe went and hired 
some field hands and a wagon. Lafitte had 
given each of ’em fifty dollars, and I didn’t 
know it. He offered me five hundred, but I 
wouldn’t take it.” 

“ Of course not,” laughed Captain Hutton. 
“ You’re your father’s own son. I’ll have the 
canoe taken care of. We may need it again, 
after we get back from Mobile. Patterson’s ex¬ 
pedition will have done its work by that time.” 

The parcel which Dan had brought to 
Captain Hutton the previous day, for this 
was the 6th of September, had contained 
very interesting documents. 

One was a letter to Governor Claiborne, 
giving Jean Lafitte’s view of his side of the 
situation. One was to Captain Hutton, the 
contents of which were known only to that 
faithful aide-de-camp of General Jackson. 
Another letter was addressed to M. Blanqui, 
a member of the state legislature of Louisi¬ 
ana. Besides these, the packet contained all 
the documents brought to Lafitte by Captain 
Lockyer. 



Andrew Jackson 


243 


The entire matter, including Lafitte’s al¬ 
most eloquent declarations of patriotism and 
offers of service, was at once brought before 
a mixed gathering at the governor’s house, 
made up of army and navy officers and dis¬ 
tinguished civilians. At this council there 
was a division of opinion. The civilians, or 
many of them, were disposed to regard the 
British papers as inventions and Lafitte’s 
conduct a mere subterfuge. The governor 
and the fighting men took the opposite view, 
but the only possible decision was that there 
should be no delay in Commodore Patter¬ 
son’s expedition to destroy Barataria. 

With this, of course, Captain Hutton had 
nothing to do, and before noon of that day 
he was beyond the city limits, feverishly 
anxious to reach Mobile and make his vari¬ 
ous reports to General Jackson. There 
would be enough of them if he could get 
there, but he was travelling with a slender 
escort, considering the length of his journey 
and the strong probability that the road 
might be infested by small parties of hostile 
red men, the remnants of the Creek nation. 



244 


The Errand B oy o f 


“ Dan ! ” suddenly exclaimed Captain Hut¬ 
ton, as they drew rein at a brookside to 
refresh and rest their horses, “ this is awful! 
I never before, in all my life, felt just as I 
do now.” 

“ Is there anything the matter ? ” asked 
Dan, anxiously. 

“ Matter ?” replied the captain. “Why, 
here we are in the woods, and we don’t 
know anything. — That is, I know one thing, 
if the British should make a sudden dash 
into New Orleans, there isn’t any force there 
strong enough to keep them from taking the 
city and holding it. It isn’t safe, for a day, 
until Jackson gets there. I learned about 
Mobile, too. Fort Bowyer, all that protects 
the harbor, is half in ruins and has no garri¬ 
son. Empty as an old eggshell. All the 
news from the North is that the volunteers 
are coming in slowly. Not even arms and 
ammunition for such as do come. The 
British could seize Grand Terre, to-day, if 
they only knew it, and had any real dash in 
them. It’s the worst state of affairs! The 
whole coast and every Southern seaport is at 



A 7t dr ew Jackson 


245 


the mercy of General Pakenham’s fleet and 
army.” 

So it was, but Hutton was right in saying 
that he knew nothing about it, for the great 
fleet and army were slowly, grandly, impos- 
ingly getting together at their appointed 
rendezvous in Negril Bay, Jamaica, and the 
American army, otherwise known as Andrew 
Jackson, had reached the coast. 

Several days later, a boat with six rowers 
might have been seen coming across Mobile 
Bay from the “point” on which Fort Bowyer 
had been built, that its guns, with any force 
to handle them, might command the narrow 
channel from the Gulf. On the wharf at 
which the boat seemed to be aimed stood a 
party of four, and behind them, at a little 
distance, as many horses seemed to have 
been left to care for themselves. Travel- 
stained, grimy, weary-looking were they all, 
for even the Seminole warrior had lost his 
dandy look, and Black Sam’s unhandsome 
face had no laugh in it. Dan Martin actu¬ 
ally sat down, muttering dolefully: — 

“ They haven’t taken the fort yet, but there 



246 


The Errand Boy of 


isn’t any army here. What on earth can 
General Jackson do ? ” 

Captain Hutton’s boots and uniform testi¬ 
fied that he had been where there was much 
mud but no brush, and his face was dark 
with anxiety. 

“ Here he comes ! ” he exclaimed. “ Thank 
God, he did get here! ” 

The boat touched the shore, but the one 
man in it who got out seemed to move with 
some difficulty. 

“ He is sick,” muttered Dan, but at that 
moment a clear, ringing, altogether cheerful 
voice called out: — 

“How are you, Captain Hutton? The 
very man I wanted to see! Let me have 
your report and despatches, but I want you 
to go and inspect Fort Bowyer. You know 
something of engineering — ” 

Hopeful, courageous, unflinching, was the 
bright face of the commander-in-chief, and 
he even stepped quickly as he came forward 
to greet his messengers. 

“ My report, first, if you please, general ? ” 
said Captain Hutton. 



Andrew Jackson 


247 


“ Of course,” said the general. “ How are 
you, Dan Martin? Ki-a-wok? Sam? You’ve 
had a hard ride. I thank you all very 
much.” 

The red man’s face brightened as the 
general shook hands with him. Black Sam 
laughed aloud, and Dan Martin half forgot 
how tired he was. 

“How!” said the Seminole. “Glad see 
great chief. Heap fight pretty soon. Kill 
a heap. Go eat now.” 

“ That’s so,” said the general. “ Hutton, 
they must have their rations. So must you 
and I. Give me your report while you eat 
your dinner. But you mustn’t delay getting 
to Fort Bowyer. I want to know what you 
think of the bearings and ranges of those 
guns. Come along.” 

There were others hurrying toward him 
now, and Dan and his friends were led away 
by a small mob that was wildly eager for the 
news from New Orleans. 

Dan half wished that he could have been 
with Captain Hutton and the general, for he 
was sure that their talk would be tremen- 



248 


The Errand Boy of 


dously interesting, but somehow or other he 
felt less despair concerning the fate of Mobile 
and Fort Bowyer. 

Probably all of the conversation at head¬ 
quarters was as entertaining as Dan imagined 
that it would be, but there was one remark 
made by the general that he might not have 
perfectly understood. 

“ Patterson is the very man to make thor¬ 
ough work of the pirate’s den,” he said. 

“ He is right about it. His expedition will 
make sure that Jean Lafitte will keep his 
bargain with me. He will not be able to do 
anything else.” 

“General,” said Captain Hutton, “as for 
the Barataria batteries, put on a few more 
guns and we could hold Grand Terre against 
the British fleet. The pirates have made it 
a strong position.” 

“ They won’t waste much of their force 
there,” said the general. “ What I hope for 
is that they will linger along at Pensacola 
and Mobile, — or anywhere else, till I am 
ready for them. If they will but give me 
time ! If they will but delay ! Great heav- 



Andrew Jackson 


249 


ens, I need time! If they push on now, 
nothing I can do can save New Orleans.” 

He spoke with deep feeling, but even his 
clear perceptions of the desperate nature of 
his undertaking seemed to fill him with 
energy. Danger, disaster, appeared to actu¬ 
ally endow him with a power beyond that of 
other men. Whatever may have been his 
defects of education or otherwise, he was a 
complete embodiment of much of the mean¬ 
ing that there is in the abused term, “ hero.” 

Captain Hutton gazed at him for a mo¬ 
ment, his face glowing with admiration, but 
the only words he could think of were: — 

“ General, if you please, I’ll go over to 
Fort Bowyer, right away.” 

“ Go ! ” said the general. “ Take your 
squad with you and leave them there. Every 
man or boy is needed. Why, Hutton, we 
haven’t, actually, men enough to handle the 
guns! Stay there to-night, and come to 
see me to-morrow. I’m raising troops. I 
shall have as many as a hundred more to 
send them, perhaps, pretty soon.” 

There may have been a touch of sarcasm 



250 


The Errand Boy of 


in that assertion, but out went Hutton, and 
in a few minutes more he was remarking: — 

“ Come along, Dan; I’m ashamed to say 
anything about fatigue and all that, now I’ve 
understood what the general’s been doing. 
He has transformed an empty ruin into a 
fort fit to beat off British war-ships.” 

“ I want to be in it when they come! ” 
shouted Dan, and the Seminole must also 
have understood, for his hand went to his 
mouth and he uttered a shrill war-whoop, — 
as a steam engine might sound its whistle, 
to prove that steam was up. 



Andrew Jackson 


251 


CHAPTER XIV 

FORT BOWYER 

A SAIL-BO AT and a fair wind took Cap¬ 
tain Hutton and his party across Mobile 
Bay, and it required all the excitement of the 
situation to keep Dan from going to sleep 
halfway over. He kept his eyes open, how¬ 
ever, trying all the while, also, to get a 
clearer idea of what it was that made Fort 
Bowyer of so much importance. 

“ Why ? ” said the captain, in reply to one 
of his questions. “ Well, just now, it’s be¬ 
cause, if British ships could get in here and 
land five hundred marines or Indians, it’ll be 
two weeks before the general ’ll have as many 
riflemen to whip them away with.” 

Some time was consumed in necessary 
tacking, to and fro. It was night before the 
sail-boat reached the point; and her passen¬ 
gers walked into Fort Bowyer by the dim 



252 


The Errand Boy of 


light of a couple of lanterns held by mem¬ 
bers of the ununiformed garrison. 

“ Captain Hutton,” shouted a deep, cheery 
voice, as they entered, “ I’m glad you’ve 
come. We shall hold the fort. Hurrah for 
General Jackson ! ” 

“ Major Lawrence ! ” responded Hutton. 
“ Is that you, my old friend ? The general 
told me you were here. He knows what 
man to put in a tight place.” 

“ Not so very tight,” said the major. “ I’ll 
show you all over it in the morning. Come 
to my quarters. Your men will be shown to 
theirs. Neither they nor you can see any¬ 
thing to-night.” 

So it came to pass that Dan Martin’s next 
war experience, after he had eaten a supper 
of fish from the bay, was only a ragged 
horse blanket thrown on the ground for him 
to sleep on, near one of the fort embrasures. 
His eyelids came together while he was star¬ 
ing at a huge cannon that was looking out 
of the embrasure as if it were silently watch¬ 
ing for possible British war-ships on the toss¬ 
ing waves of the Gulf of Mexico. 



A n drew J a ckson 


253 


They were there, and more were coming, 
and this was a night of watchfulness for all 
who were awake at Fort Bowyer. 

A young soldier with a twenty-four- 
pounder cannon for a room-mate, in the first 
fortress he had ever entered, was likely to be 
an early riser, and Dan Martin was up and 
peering over the ramparts before the sun of the 
12 th of September was above the horizon. 

“ There isn’t anything great to be seen,” 
he was thinking. “ There’s the channel that 
the British want to sail through, into the 
bay. There are the big sand-hills. Cap¬ 
tain Hutton told me the general wanted him 
to survey them. He believes that, if the 
British could mount cannon on one of them, 
they could throw their shot right into the 
fort. There’s no cellar here deep enough to 
hide our ammunition in, and there are cart¬ 
loads of it. Glad of that, if there’s a fight 
coming.” 

What he meant was that this was a very 
imperfect fort, without what is called a “ cov¬ 
ered way,” in front, or any “ bombproof ” pow¬ 
der magazine, or hospital for wounded men. 



254 


The Errand Boy of 


He knew very little about such matters, 
and he turned admiringly for a look at the 
great guns, as he considered them. 

“ I know,” he said. “ The captain told 
me. Two of them are twenty-fours. Six of 
them are twelve-pounders. There are a 
dozen smaller guns, of all sorts. One hun¬ 
dred and sixty men. That’s eight for each 
gun. I reckon we can load and fire ’em.” 

Military men would have wished for some¬ 
thing more than mere gun-crews for their 
artillery, considering how many things there 
are to do in a fort under a heavy fire, but Dan 
was a greenhorn. 

“ Ugh! ” growled a deep voice in his ear, 
and he was startled at the same moment by 
a strong grip on his shoulder. “ Boy up. 
Ki-a-wok see Major Lawrence. Go ! ” 

“ Red Shirt Joe!” he exclaimed. “Have 
you been scouting already ? ” 

“Ugh! Boy no talk. Shut mouth.” 

“ There comes the major,” interrupted 
Dan; for he saw the first commander strid¬ 
ing rapidly toward them. 

A summons had reached him, brought in 



A 7i drew Ja ckson 


255 


by a patrol on a run, and here he was to ques¬ 
tion the Seminole. 

“ What is it ? ” he curtly demanded. 

“ Ugh ! ” almost whooped the Seminole, 
holding up at the same moment a bloody 
proof that he had made a successful war-path. 
“ Ki-a-wok great chief! Take ’calp. Heap 
Creek come ashore in night. Heap redcoat. 
One cannon. Many boat. ’Tay over be¬ 
hind sand-hill. Fort wake up.” 

“Just what I expected,” said Major Law¬ 
rence, calmly. “ They are coming, but there 
are no ships very near.” 

He questioned the Seminole closely, re¬ 
ceiving very intelligent answers; but other 
scouts were out, and he would soon know 
more. Ki-a-wok was in high spirits, for 
he had at last succeeded in actually strik¬ 
ing an enemy. Dan had an idea that Black 
Sam looked at his red comrade with envious 
eyes, as a rival who was getting ahead of 
him. 

Captain Hutton and some of the officers 
of the garrison were busy at their profes¬ 
sional duties, and part of these consisted in 



256 


The Errand Boy of 


a vigorous drilling of the newly enlisted vol¬ 
unteers in handling the guns. Dan Martin 
himself was entered with a squad that was to 
have charge of his first great acquaintance, 
the twenty-four. 

“ So ! ” he exclaimed. “ I’m to be an ar¬ 
tilleryman. What would father say to that ? 
or Jim ? or mother ? ” 

Dan had hardly selected the right name 
this time. He was not expected to load or 
aim or fire that imposing piece of ordnance. 
He was to be what the sailors call a powder 
monkey, carrying cartridges. He was also 
provided with a handbarrow for shot, and he 
found that even the toting of powder and ball 
required special instruction. 

The scouts came and went, confirming the 
Seminole’s observations; but there was as yet 
nothing ready to report to the general, and 
the day went slowly by. 

Something apparently did come, at a cou¬ 
ple of hours before sunset, for no less than 
four British men-of-war were then in sight. 
They furled their sails and dropped their 
anchors, about six miles from Mobile Point, 



Andrew Jackson 


257 


as if they had come to stay there for 
a while. 

It was a strong squadron. The Hermes , 
Captain Percy, carried twenty-two guns; the 
Sophia , Captain Lockyer, eighteen guns; the 
Caron , twenty guns; the Childers , eighteen 
guns. That is, Captain Percy, in command, 
had seventy-eight guns, — so that he could 
fire broadsides of thirty-nine each, or, at every 
fire, twice as many as were in Fort Bowyer. 
As many of the fort guns were small, and 
some of the naval guns were very heavy, the 
advantage of the British was tremendous. 
Their cannon power was nearly five times 
that of the fort, if they could get near enough 
to use it. Dan heard all about it, that even¬ 
ing, and he was disposed to admire, more 
than ever, what to his eyes appeared to be 
the thickness and strength of those really 
very imperfect ramparts. 

Ships lying at anchor, at a distance, can 
do no harm, but early the next day the Brit¬ 
ish force on land was seen to be moving for¬ 
ward. British authorities record the force 
which first landed at sixty marines and a 



2 5 8 


The Errand Boy of 


hundred and twenty Creeks. These must 
afterward have been reenforced, for another 
statement increases the number to one hun¬ 
dred and thirty marines and six hundred 
Indians. The smaller force would not have 
dared to advance, as these did now, after 
reconnoitring. They took possession of a 
sand-hill, seven hundred yards away, and 
opened fire with their one gun, a howitzer. 

Dan Martin stood at his gun and watched 
the firing. 

“ There! ” he exclaimed, “ they hit that 
log!” 

“ Kill ’im dead, Massa Dan,” laughed 
Black Sam, at his side. “ Dat ar’ log isn’t 
good for nothin’ any moah.” 

The heavy pine timber that had formed 
part of a parapet had been splintered in a 
way to show Dan what a cannon-ball could 
do, but that was all, except that the attack 
on the fort had actually begun. The Ameri¬ 
can guns replied, but there was, as yet, very 
little for them to do; and Dan wondered at 
the sudden excitement that came upon Cap¬ 
tain Hutton and Major Lawrence. 



A 71 dr ew J acks071 


259 


“Telescopes?” he thought. “I can’t see 
anything. What’s coming ? There’s the 
major himself, sighting one of those nine- 
pounders. There it goes ! ” 

He had no spy-glass, or he might have 
discovered, as his commander did, that sev¬ 
eral boats from the enemy had boldly pulled 
on into the channel, to take soundings for 
the benefit of the ships which were to follow 
them. The brave tars did their work and 
then got away, seemingly unharmed by the 
cannonade before which they were forced to 
retreat. 

No battle had come yet, but there was 
excitement enough, even after dark, for every¬ 
body in the fort knew that the British ma¬ 
rines under Colonel Nichols and the Creeks 
under Captain Woodbine were steadily com¬ 
ing closer, making breastworks here and 
there to protect them from the American 
artillery. All were astir early on the morn¬ 
ing of September 14, but Dan Martin was 
awakened by Captain Hutton. 

“ Do you want me, sir? ” exclaimed Dan, 
springing to his feet. 



260 


The Errand Boy of 


“ No,” said the captain, curtly. “ You are 
to stay here, unless Major Lawrence wishes 
to send a message by you. I am off to re¬ 
port to General Jackson that the British will 
attack us within twenty-four hours. Their 
ships are moving. We must have more 
men, if he can send us only a dozen. The 
outlook for this fort is a bad one.” 

“We’ll fight,” said Dan. 

“ Of course you will,” growled the cap¬ 
tain. “ I want to stay, but I can’t. I’ll try 
to come back with a reenforcement. If those 
Creeks get over the rampart, they won’t 
leave a living soul in Fort Bowyer. It’ll be 
another affair like that at Fort Minims.” 

“ They killed ’em all,” said Dan. “ ’Tisn’t 
so far away from this place, either. So Te- 
cumseh’s and Proctor’s Indians did, after our 
defeat at the Raisin.” 

Away went Captain Hutton, and he was 
soon in a boat, speeding across Mobile Bay 
to warn General Jackson of the awful peril 
so close at hand. Precisely how he suc¬ 
ceeded was not known at the fort until three 
days later. The captain’s boat had gone 



Andrew Jackson 


261 


only a few miles when it met another, for the 
general himself was on his way to inspect 
the situation of affairs. Silently, with a 
clouded face, he listened to every particular 
of Captain Hutton’s report. 

“ Major Lawrence is right! ” he said. 
“ They will attack him. I do not need to 
know any more. Hutton, come back to 
Mobile with me. He must have men! God 
in heaven ! where can I get them ? He and 
his brave fellows will be massacred.” 

His rowers pulled their best, Hutton’s 
own boat returning to the fort without him. 
Mobile was reached, and General Jackson 
searched for men, but he could at that hour 
muster only eighty that were fit to send. 
He placed them under a good officer, and 
hurried them off; but he had not barges 
enough, and so he sent them on a sailing 
vessel. That was the end of their usefulness 
as a reenforcement, for the wind turned 
against them and they never reached Fort 
Bowyer. 

One more night went by, and the 15th of 
September came; and Dan Martin felt that 



262 


The Errand Boy of 


he was rapidly becoming an old soldier, be¬ 
longing to a garrison which had been be¬ 
sieged during several very trying days. 

“ I suppose,” he thought, “ the captain 
and his reenforcements will get here to-day. 
Perhaps General Jackson ’ll come too. Some 
of the Creeks scouted near enough in the 
night for us to hear ’em whoop. I hope we 
can kill some of them. All the men are 
talking about them, just as Captain Hutton 
did. We won’t surrender, just to be scalped, 
after we’ve given up our rifles and can’t help 
ourselves.” 

That was the feeling throughout the gar¬ 
rison, but perhaps only the officers saw how 
almost hopeless was to be a defence against 
such overwhelming odds. 

The hours went by; the ships tacked to 
and fro as if waiting for a favorable wind to 
carry them into the channel; and at last, at 
about two o’clock, it could be seen that their 
holding back was over. 

More experienced eyes than Dan Martin’s 
were studying the movements of the enemy, 
but he could feel his heart beating like a 



Andrew Jackson 


263 


small trip-hammer, as he listened to the fierce 
exclamations uttered by the all but desperate 
men around him. 

“ Men! ” he heard in a trumpet-like voice 
from near the centre of the open space within 
the fort. 

There stood Major Lawrence on an empty 
box, and the garrison came swarming around 
him. Every gun was deserted, and the brave 
fellows who were so soon to fight for their 
lives gazed intently upon the resolute face 
of their commander as he vigorously ad¬ 
dressed them. The officers were nearest, 
and a part of his speech was directly to them, 
for no one could tell how soon one of them 
might be commanding in his place. 

“ Our motto this day,” he said, “ is that of 
Captain Lawrence on the shattered Chesa¬ 
peake: Don t give up the ship ! I now have 
a resolution to propose for adoption, and you 
must swear to abide by it.” 

He read it aloud. It was an agreement 
that the fort should be held to the last ex¬ 
tremity,— until it should be battered to a 
ruin and most of its defenders killed. Even 



264 


The Errand Boy of 


then there was to be no surrender, except 
upon honorable terms and full security 
against massacre by the Indians. 

The officers took the oath, man by man, 
and the men agreed to stand by them. 

“ Now! ” shouted the major. “ Every man 
to his post, and don’t give up the ship! ” 

Dan felt himself tingling all over, and he 
gripped his rifle hard. 

“ Oh! ” he said, “ but don’t I hope I’ll 
have a chance to use it before this fight’s 
over! ” 

It was four o’clock before the cannonading 
really began, and then Dan was better able 
to understand General Jackson’s anxiety 
about the ranges and bearings of the cannon 
of the fort. Only twelve of them were in 
position for use, against the seventy-eight of 
the ships of war, — if these could all be 
brought to bear. 

Thirty minutes later the Hermes was in 
the channel, followed by her consorts, and 
they all dropped anchor with one full broad¬ 
side toward Fort Bowyer. 

The firing became terrific, and Dan found 



Andrew Jackson 


265 


himself toiling back and forth through a 
dense fog of powder smoke, wheeling sup¬ 
plies of balls and cartridges for his twenty- 
four-pounder. Black Sam was performing 
similar service for another gun, but the 
Seminole would do no such work. He sat 
in silence at an empty embrasure, watching 
with wooden calmness the operations of the 
ships and the nearer movements of the 
marines and Creeks. These latter had as 
yet not distinguished themselves, for it had 
been easy to silence Colonel Nichols’s soli¬ 
tary howitzer. 

An hour went by, and suddenly, by order 
of Major Lawrence, the fort fire ceased. 

“ He hasn’t surrendered! ” sprang to the 
lips of Dan Martin. 

“No, my boy,” said a tall volunteer near 
him, “ the flag o’ the Hermes is shot down. 
There! It’s up again! I was sure she 
hadn’t lowered it for any harm we’ve done 
her yet. Hurrah! Blaze away!” 

There had been a silent interval of several 
minutes, during which every gun on either 
side was loaded. Then it seemed to Dan 



266 


The Errand Boy of 


as if they all went off together, shaking 
Mobile Point and all the surrounding coun¬ 
try. 

“ There goes our flag this time,” yelled 
Dan, as the fort flagstaff was cut in two by 
a cannon-ball. 

“ Massa Dan! ” called out Black Sam. 
“Come on! We’s boun’ to put it up! 
Fetch dat ar’ rammer! ” 

Half a dozen others sprang away with 
them, and in a few minutes more the Stars 
and Stripes arose as brightly as ever, the 
splintered staff having been spliced with the 
long sponger stick brought by Dan Martin 
from a disabled gun. 

The British ships increased their fire at 
that moment, and the force under Colonel 
Nichols may have misunderstood the situ¬ 
ation. Creeks and marines, yelling, whoop¬ 
ing, hurrahing, with one accord they sprang 
forward as if expecting to take possession of 
the fort. If they could have done so, the red 
men would not have waited to be restrained 
by any formal terms of surrender. 

“ Grape shot for them ! ” shouted Major 



A ndrew Jacks on 


267 


Lawrence, and the men loaded as if their 
last moment had come. 

The batteries thundered again, the showers 
of lead and iron fell amon^ the advancing 
stormers, and this was not at all what the 
warriors of the woods had been expecting. 
The marines were too few to come on alone, 
and when their savage allies broke and ran, 
they were compelled to do the same, — and 
were entirely willing under the circumstances. 

These all had fallen back, but it seemed 
as if the dark hour of the fort and its garrison 
had come. Major Lawrence walked slowly 
along from place to place inspecting the 
serious damage done to the ramparts, and 
brave as he was, he shook his head half 
despondingly. Dan Martin stood still and 
stared in astonishment, as he wheeled a 
barrow load of balls to the side of his 
twenty-four. 

“ They’ll not be needed, my boy,” said his 
friend, the gunner. “ She’ll never throw an¬ 
other shot. She’s half busted.” 

So was the other twenty-four-pounder. 
One of the smaller guns had burst. One 



268 


The Errand Boy of 


had been shattered by a British ball. Two 
more were dismounted. The artillery force 
of the fort had been diminished by at least a 
third. The men themselves were weary, for 
the hot September weather was telling on 
them. Every tenth man was down, killed or 
wounded, and the stock of ammunition was 
getting lower all the while. 

The gloom over the fort was as dark as 
the eddying clouds of powder smoke. It 
would soon have grown darker, but for the 
intelligence and patriotism unexpectedly dis¬ 
played by a round globe of iron fired from 
one of the remaining twelve-pounder guns. 
Starting from the cannon muzzle in the 
usual manner, as if it intended striking the 
Hermes , it sailed on a few feet ahead of her, 
and cut the cable by which she was held at 
anchor. In .an instant she was adrift, with¬ 
out a sail up to give her steerage way. The 
strong tide took hold of her prow, swung it 
around, and plunged it into the sandy bottom 
of a shallow. There she struck, her stern 
toward the fort, all her guns useless, and her 
entire length exposed to a raking fire, which 



Andrew Jackson 


269 


was pitilessly poured into her. She could 
neither fight nor get away, and Captain 
Percy was forced to abandon her. As 
rapidly as possible he transferred his crew, 
well men or wounded, to the Sophia . She 
had been somewhat injured, but was not 
crippled. The two other ships were almost 
unharmed, but all these pulled up their 
anchors and sailed away out of range. It 
was well for Major Lawrence and his brave 
garrison that the British commander was at 
that time ignorant of the disabled condition 
of Fort Bowyer, for his superiority in men 
and guns, in fighting strength, was much 
greater than at the outset. The actual Brit¬ 
ish loss is officially reported at only thirty- 
two killed and forty wounded, sailors and 
marines, although this is not supposed to 
include Red Stick Creeks, not on the muster 
rolls of enlisted men. 

The American artillery continued to send 
an occasional shot at the Hermes , but she 
was not to become a prize. A fire had been 
kindled in her hold, and before long it burned 
up through her hatches. 



270 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Sorry for that! ” exclaimed Dan Mar¬ 
tin, as he looked at the swift flame, climb¬ 
ing her masts and rigging. “ Oh! but 
wouldn’t she have made a good ship for us 
to have! ” 

The forces under Colonel Nichols and 
Captain Woodbine had retired, and scouts 
from the fort were out to find what had 
become of them. Perhaps the first man to 
go over the ramparts on that errand had 
been Red Shirt Joe, followed closely by 
Black Sam. They did not return for sev¬ 
eral hours, and when they came in to make 
their report, such as it was, they found Major 
Lawrence in the centre of a small group of 
officers and men, among whom was Dan 
Martin. 

“ Hold on, Sam,” whispered Dan. “ Hear 
what that lieutenant is saying.” 

“ How many ? ” asked the major, with some 
surprise. “ How many cannon-balls did you 
say we had fired away at ’em ? ” 

“Seven hundred, sir,” said the officer; but 
at that moment all other sounds were drowned 
in the roar of a tremendous explosion, while 



Andrew Jackson 


271 


a vast column of smoke and flame shot up 
from a spot out in the channel. 

“Yes, sir,” added the lieutenant, “and the 
Hermes is blown up, sir. The fire got to 
her powder magazine — ” 

“ That’s the last of her! ” shouted the 
major. “ Three cheers, men ! Now! ” 
Every other voice joined heartily with his 
own, and as they ceased, he exclaimed: — 

“ General Jackson must know this. The 
reports are all ready to send him. Sergeant, 
get a boat ready. Are you there, Martin ? 
I can spare no enlisted men. The wind is 
fine, now, and you and your Seminole and 
Sam must take a sail across the bay.” 

“ All ready, sir! ” responded Dan, and his 
Indian friend added : — 

“Ugh! Ki-a-wok ready too. All Creek 
go into boat and get away. No kill any 
more now. Chief heard heap big gun.” 

Beyond a doubt it had been a delightful 
episode in his warrior life to have heard so 
many cannon roaring together. It had been 
a wonderful thing for Dan Martin also, but 
he felt a thrill of pride in being made Major 



272 


The Errand Boy of 


Lawrence’s especial messenger to General 
Jackson. Perhaps he would not have been 
so, but for the fact that Major Lawrence 
half expected another attack, and had only a 
hundred and forty men at all fit for duty. 

The general had already received a mes¬ 
senger, however; for the brig containing the 
eighty men intended to reenforce the garri¬ 
son had sailed back swiftly across the bay, 
the wind now being with her. All on board 
had seen the red light from the burning 
Hermes . All had heard, at eleven o’clock, 
the thunder from her bursting magazine. It 
had been interpreted by them as the glare of 
the burning timbers of the captured fort, and 
the explosion of all its remaining powder. 
So they reported in the morning when the 
brig reached Mobile. The general almost 
refused to believe, but he began at once to 
plan measures and summon troops for re¬ 
occupying the Point. It must have been a 
dark hour for him, in spite of his unflinching 
courage and exhaustless energy. It was only 
two or three dark hours, however, for the 
next sail to come down on the wind to Mo- 



Andrew Jackson 


273 


bile brought to him Dan Martin and the 
triumphant despatches of Major Lawrence. 

“No!” he exclaimed, after he had read 
them and listened to Dan’s account. “ They 
will not try it again right away. They’ve 
had enough. Captain Hutton, this news 
ought to be in New Orleans within forty- 
eight hours.” 

“ One hundred and seventy miles, by such 
roads ? The horses — ” 

“Horses!” exclaimed the general. “No! 
The coast will be almost clear for a day or 
so. You and your men and a couple of 
sailors can make the run, going in through 
Lake Borgne. Less risk just now than there 
would have been before this victory.” 

“We can do it, general! ” replied Captain 
Hutton; and he went away to find and pre¬ 
pare a swift despatch-boat, while the general 
went to his quarters to ply his pen all the 
rest of the day upon reports of several kinds, 
and upon spirit-stirring proclamations to the 
people. 



The Errand Boy of 


274 


CHAPTER XV 

BATTLE FEVER DAYS 

“/CAPTAIN!” shouted Dan, “they’ve 
tacked again! Are we going to get 
away from them ? ” 

“ Of course we are,” said Captain Hutton, 
coolly. “ They’ll send more shot after us, 
but they won’t venture to follow us across 
the Lake Borgne shoals.” 

“ We’ll run ’em fast aground if they do,” 
said a sailor-like man at the helm of the tight 
little craft they were in. “ But that there 
brig’s a clipper. We’ve had a close shave.” 

“A miss is as good as a mile,” said Hut¬ 
ton ; and he may have meant the British brig 
which had pursued them so persistently dur¬ 
ing the latter part of this daring run from 
Mobile, or he may have referred to a shot 
from one of her guns which was at that mo¬ 
ment skipping from wave to wave less than 
twenty yards from the sail-boat. 



A n dr ew Jackson 


275 


The navigation at the entrance of Lake 
Borgne was understood to be somewhat un¬ 
certain for heavy-draft vessels, and the Brit¬ 
ish brig was indeed giving up the chase. A 
mere despatch-boat, if such she might be 
considered, was hardly worth the risk. The 
Hermes herself had been lost by running her 
nose into American mud. 

“ Where away now, Captain Hutton ? ” 
called out the sailor. “ We’re safe.” 

“ Straight for the mouth of Bayou St. John,” 
replied Hutton. “We can foot it from there 
into New Orleans. ’Tisn’t over seven miles.” 

The breeze was good, and the boat went 
along finely, while Captain Hutton seemed 
to be not contented with using his eyes, for 
he was working a spy-glass also. 

“ Do you see anything, sir? ” asked Dan. 

“ No, not yet,” said the captain; “ but 
Commodore Patterson believes that the Brit¬ 
ish will try to get in at us by way of this lake. 
He means to have an armed fleet of barges 
here, and how he’s to arm them I don’t 
know. General Jackson’ll have to help him 
about that.” 



276 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Could they take the old fort at the Bayou 
St. John? ” asked the sailor. 

“ They won’t need to,” said the captain. 
“It won’t be in their way. Pretty good fort 
too. The Spaniards built it of bricks that 
they brought all the way from Spain. I 
heard that it’s garrisoned now, by a corporal 
and three men. That’s enough to keep the 
old guns clean, so they can be loaded and 
fired if they’re wanted.” 

There was nothing in his present orders, 
however, which required him to inspect the 
old Spanish fort, and he saw no sign of any 
American flotilla cruising on the lake. Noth¬ 
ing was there to have prevented a fleet of 
British boats from pulling right in and land¬ 
ing where he did, under the empty brass can¬ 
non the Spaniards had left behind them. 

“ Captain,” said the sailor, “ we’ll go ashore, 
and get some rations for the return trip. 
Then we’re off for Mobile.” 

“ Ugh ! ” exclaimed the Seminole. “ Ki-a- 
wok go too. No fight at New Orleans till 
Jackson come. No ’tay. Want fight.” 

“ Good ! ” said Captain Hutton. “ No, 



Andrew Jackson 


277 


Smith, you won’t go till to-morrow morning. 
I’ll send some despatches back by you and 
Black Sam and the Seminole. I shan’t need 
them here.” 

“ Ugh ! ” said Ki-a-wok. “ Jackson go 
fight Red Stick Creek again. Kill a heap. 
No want go sleep in town.” 

He and Sam were not enlisted men, and 
they would be of more value at Mobile than 
elsewhere. It was best to let them have 
their own way, for the negro was in very 
positive agreement with the scalp-hungry 
red man. 

The walk from their landing-place to the 
city might have been a quiet one, if they had 
not met anybody on the way, and if Captain 
Hutton had not stopped the first wayfarer 
they came to and asked for the latest news. 
Of course it was received in exchange for the 
glorious tidings of the victory at Fort Bow- 
yer. In a moment that man was dancing up 
and down with patriotic delight. In another, 
they had heard of something which Commo¬ 
dore Patterson had been doing, and then 
they were pushing forward at their best pace, 



278 


The Errand Boy of 


followed and joined by eager, exulting inquir¬ 
ers, until they reached the city more as a kind 
of fast-growing mob than as a mere squad of 
messengers from General Jackson. 

There had been some excitement in New 
Orleans before they came in this way, to 
almost set the city on fire. 

“ Barataria wiped out ? ” Captain Hutton 
had exclaimed. “ Dan, that’s one more blow 
at the British. Jean Lafitte ’ll have to keep 
his word now.” 

“ Oh ! But won’t he be mad ? ” said Dan. 

“ Not very,” replied the captain. “ I don’t 
believe his own pocket suffered much, and 
he knew, long ago, that he must shut up 
shop.” 

The Grand Terre establishment was gone, 
forever, nevertheless. On the 10th of Sep¬ 
tember, Pierre Lafitte, the eldest of the 
three brothers, returned to Grand Terre from 
some business expedition or other, and he 
at once fully approved of all the action taken 
by Jean in his absence. No doubt he also 
joined him, with energy, in the work of re¬ 
moving goods out of reach of the coming 



Andrew Jackson 


2 79 

expedition. The force under Commodore 
Patterson left New Orleans on the nth, and 
was four days on its way, every step of its 
progress watched by the Baratarians. On 
the 15th, the day of the fight at Fort Bowyer, 
it reached and captured Grand Terre. 
There was no resistance. Some booty was 
found in the warehouses. A few vessels of 
no great value were caught in the bay. The 
buildings were destroyed, and a small guard 
was left to care for the cannon in the sea¬ 
ward battery. A number of prisoners were 
taken and carried to New Orleans, but 
among them was not either Jean Lafitte or 
his brother Pierre. If they were not at La 
Blanche’s place, they had gone to some 
equally secure refuge. 

The story of the fall of Barataria did not 
end here, however. There was something 
almost comic in the fact that Captain Lock- 
yer kept his word to Jean Lafitte. Punc¬ 
tually, on the 20th of September, the Sophia 
appeared off the mouth of the channel and 
fired her signals. She was not so badly 
crippled by Major Lawrence’s guns that she 



28 o 


The Errand Boy of 


could not make so short a voyage as this. 
In vain her expectant cannon sounded. No 
pirate-merchant boat came out to meet her 
and deliver the various properties agreed 
upon. The thirty thousand dollars and all 
the bribes were saved to the British govern¬ 
ment. Captain Lockyer had been taught 
prudence recently, however. All this might 
be only a cunning Yankee trap set for him, 
after all, and he did not try to run into the 
bay with the Sophia . He gave it up and 
sailed away, and he may have at that hour 
lost all his confidence in buccaneers and 
their promises. 

Captain Hutton succeeded in reaching 
Governor Claiborne’s house through a dense 
throng which packed the street in front of 
it, but he could not answer a hundred anx¬ 
ious questioners who shouted: — 

“When is General Jackson coming?” 

That was a thing which no living man 
could tell, for the general had yet much busi¬ 
ness to attend to, at Mobile, Pensacola, and 
elsewhere. He was now well informed, also, 
that the great British expedition, fleet and 



Andrew Jackson 


281 


army, had not by any means completed the 
slow and dignified process of pulling itself 
together. 

“ I shall have time,” he said. “ I will finish 
here first. Then I shall get to New Orleans 
before they can. I’ll beat ’em.” 

Dan Martin was not expected to follow 
the captain into the governor’s parlor, al¬ 
ready crowded with much more important 
people. Black Sam and the Seminole had 
wisely disappeared, for they were not talking 
men, and any report they might have to 
make could be given out in ways that suited 
themselves. Dan, therefore, had almost to 
himself the trying duty of telling, over and 
over again, how the British attacked Fort 
Bowyer, and how they were defeated. All 
who heard were glad to get the particulars 
from a fellow who had actually been in the 
fort, and who had handled a twenty-four- 
pounder cannon during the battle. It was 
the next best thing to having been there all 
the while themselves. 

Dan enjoyed it, no doubt, but when at 
last the captain came out and hailed him, he 



282 


The Errand Boy of 


hurried into the house as if he were running 
away from something. 

“ Captain,” he whispered. “ Can anybody 
hear us ? I want to tell something.” 

“ This way,” said the captain, pulling him 
along. “ Now! What is it ? ” 

“ Pat Shannon,” said Dan. “ He got at 
me in the crowd, for a moment. Jean Lafitte 
is up the river. He wants to see you. I’m 
to meet Pat on the levee, this evening.” 

“ Call him Pierre Chanon, all the while,” 
said the captain. “ There’s a reason for it. 
Go, by all means. Learn all you can. I 
shan’t meet you again till to-morrow morning. 
Sleep at your old quarters. See if you have 
any letters in the post-office. I must go back 
to the governor now.” 

It was somewhat easier now to slip through 
a crowd, all the members of which were talk¬ 
ing excitedly to one another, the greater part 
of them in French. Dan knew the where¬ 
abouts of the post-office, but going to such a 
place with the idea of getting anything was 
altogether a new experience. His blood 
tingled as if he were marching against the 



Andrew Jackson 


283 


British, and his brains began to crowd up, 
tumultuously, with thoughts and memories 
of his far-away home in Tennessee. 

“ Will there be one there ? From mother? 
From father? The girls can write first-rate, 
but Jim can’t. I hope it’s there.” 

In a few minutes more he knew, for the first 
letter he had ever received was in his hand. 
He looked at it, weighed it, studied the post¬ 
marks, but he could not bear to open it on 
the street. The postage had been twenty-five 
cents, for the days of stamps of one value for 
any distance in the United States had not yet 
come. 

“ It’s a heavy letter,” he thought. “ I’ll 
read it in my room, — all alone.” 

He was not long in getting there, and 
then his fingers trembled as he carefully cut 
away the paper around the wafer that shut 
up that priceless letter. 

Whom was it from ? Indeed ! Why, it was 
from the whole family, although his mother 
had written the greater part of it. Among 
them all, they had told him how the house and 
farm looked, and a lot of things which had hap- 



284 


The Errand Boy of 


pened while he was away in the army. The 
number of questions asked, especially by 
his father, concerning military affairs, was 
extraordinary. Of course there was a post¬ 
script, for down at the end of the last page 
his mother added: — 

“ Jim says, tell Dan the gray horse he stole 
on the road to Nashville got here all right, and 
I’m ploughing with him. I hope he’ll shoot 
some British and get back home as soon as 
he can.” 

“ That’s Jim ! ” said Dan, and then, for the 
first time, he knew that he had been wiping 
something wet from both his cheeks while 
he was reading that letter. 

It was done now, and he could go and eat 
his supper. After that, there was nothing to 
be thought of but his expected meeting with 
Pierre Chanon. 

“ Pat’ll be there,” said Dan to himself. “ I 
don’t know who else may be. I’d better take 
Sam and the Seminole along.” 

Both of them had come to see him, but it 
appeared as if they had done so mainly to 
make sure of their intended escape from New 
Orleans to rejoin General Jackson. 



A 7i dr e zd J a c k s on 


285 


They were willing enough to go with Dan, 
although he did not promise them an oppor¬ 
tunity for killing anybody. 

“ Ugh ! ” said Ki-a-wok. “No kill Chanon. 
Heap friend. No want Chanon ’calp.” 

He was evidently in a disgusted state of 
mind at being entrapped here, so far away 
from the possible fights near the Florida 
border line, where the Creeks were known to 
be gathering to receive their new guns and 
other presents from England. 

The river bank was reached and half a 
mile of it, up-stream, was traversed in watch¬ 
ful silence. The night was dark, but the 
eyes of Ki-a-wok were very good. 

“ Ugh ! ” he exclaimed. “ Hold ’till — 
Chanon.” 

He pointed at something that seemed to 
be lying on the ground, not many feet be¬ 
yond them, as if a man were there asleep. 

Black Sam whistled shrilly, and the seem¬ 
ing sleeper arose to a sitting posture. 

“ Come ! ” said Ki-a-wok. “ Talk now.” 

“ Pierre Chanon ? ” said Dan, in a low 
tone. “ Is that you ? ” 



286 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Don’t spake Frinch, the day,” replied 
Chanon. “All I’ve to say is this. Till Cap¬ 
tain Hutton that Jean sends word : Jean’ll 
kape faith wid the gineral. He’s not far 
away. Till the captain we’ll mate him for 
a talk, — himsilf to set the day and hour, 
and I’ll coom to bring him to the place, if 
that’ll suit him.” 

“ Of course it will,” said Dan. “ The cap¬ 
tain wants just such a talk. He has a good 
deal to say, too. I’ll meet you here, to-mor¬ 
row night.” 

“ All right,” said Chanon, lazily lying down 
again. “ Get along wid yez, now.” 

He had not been seen to confer with any¬ 
body, if, perchance, there had been watch¬ 
ers; but Dan and his friends had not walked 
a hundred yards before Red Shirt Joe re¬ 
marked : — 

“ Ki-a-wok saw Jean. Heap fool ’tay in 
New Orleans. Claiborne shut him in jail.” 

“ I didn’t see him,” exclaimed Dan. “Where 
was he ? ” 

“ Heap big ole sugar barrel,” said the Semi¬ 
nole. “ Lift head. Ki-a-wok see.” 



Andrew Jackson 


287 


It was even so. Jean Lafitte was in the 
city, and not even the watchful red warrior 
had seen Pierre Chanon hand to Dan Martin 
a paper envelope. Not until Dan reached 
Captain Hutton’s quarters, moreover, did he 
learn by the light of a candle that this con¬ 
tained a letter addressed to Major General 
Andrew Jackson, and another for Hutton 
himself. 

“ This is very important, Dan,” said the 
captain. “We must occupy Grand Terre 
as soon as possible. This other must go 
off to Mobile in the boat, with my other 
despatches. It will take me all night to 
write them.” 



2 88 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER XVI 

THE BRITISH ARE CLOSING IN 

“TJAD news, Dan!” said Captain Hutton, 
U as his boy orderly came to the piazza 
in front of General Jackson’s headquarters in 
New Orleans. 

The captain’s face was darkly clouded, and 
Dan’s own turned pale as he responded: — 
“ What is it, sir? Has anything happened 
to General Jackson ? ” 

“ No, not so bad as that,” said the captain, 
gloomily; “but the British have destroyed 
our gunboats on Lake Borgne.” 

“ Captured the lake ? ” exclaimed Dan. 
“ Then they can come right in.” 

“ Well,” said the captain, more coura¬ 
geously, “ I suppose they can now make a 
landing somewhere, and march along until 
they find something in their way.” 

“ We’ll meet ’em,” said Dan. “ I’m glad 



Andrew Jackson 


289 


so many Tennesseeans are here already,— 
and more coming.” 

“We shall need a great many more,” 
growled the captain; “but the general is 
doing wonders with all the force he has.” 

It was the evening of the 14th of Decem¬ 
ber, 1814. General Jackson had been in the 
city only twelve days, but during those days 
he had organized something like an army 
out of a great variety of previously discor¬ 
dant elements. The city was now under 
martial law, and many citizens complained 
that it was also under the outrageous tyr¬ 
anny of a merciless, self-willed dictator. At 
this hour, not only the grumblers, but thou¬ 
sands of patriotic men and women, were 
suffering under an undisguised panic, for 
dreadful prophecies had been uttered of the 
probable conduct, or misconduct, of the Brit¬ 
ish troops, if they should take the city. 

To many eyes it looked as if there was 
nothing to keep them from doing so, and the 
condition of affairs was really made much 
worse by their small but decisive victory at 
Lake Borgne. 



290 


The Errand Boy of 


“ There are so many of them! ” said Dan 
Martin, as he thought the matter over. 
“ And there are so few of us! How can 
the general be so sure he is going to beat 
them ? ” 

A fleet of fifty war-ships and transports, 
carrying a thousand guns and twenty thou¬ 
sand men, seemed, indeed, to be utterly over¬ 
whelming. So they would have been, if the 
ships could have sailed on to any place from 
which their thousand guns could have thrown 
shot into New Orleans. As to the twenty 
thousand men, only half of them were sol¬ 
diers, although these might have been largely 
reenforced from the hard-fighting sailors, if 
there had been any use found for more men. 
The regular soldiers, of all sorts, ready to go 
on shore, were about five times as many as 
the Americans could send out to face them. 
This should have been enough. It might 
have been, perhaps, but for one thing. The 
commander-in-chief of the British forces at 
this time was General Uncertainty, for Gen¬ 
eral Pakenham had not arrived, and his brave 
and capable subordinate, General Keane, was 



A ndrew Ja ckson 


291 


waiting for him. A very different com¬ 
mander was infusing his own terrible energy 
into the hearts of the American army. 

“ Dan, my boy,” exclaimed Captain Hut¬ 
ton, “ I’m ashamed of myself. I ought not 
to feel as I do about this Lake Borgne af¬ 
fair,— not after the talk I’ve had with the 
general.” 

“ Why, sir,” said Dan, “ what does he say 
about it ? ” 

“ He didn’t quiver a hair! ” replied the 
captain. “He was sorry, of course, that we 
lost our five gunboats. The British came on 
with a superior force and stormed over them 
when they were caught in a calm and couldn’t 
manoeuvre. ‘But,’ said the general, ‘this 
gives me a great relief, after all.’ ” 

“ A relief ? ” said Dan, in astonishment. 

“Yes,” said the captain. “He said that 
now he knows from which of several possible 
directions the British are coming. He can 
concentrate his men and guns to meet ’em.” 

“ Can’t he keep ’em from landing ? ” asked 
Dan. 

“No,” said Hutton. “He can’t guard so 



292 


The Errand Boy of 


long a line of shore. He doesn’t want to, 
either. Wherever they land, they’ll have a 
swampy march before ’em, and he’ll be ready 
to strike ’em as soon as they show themselves 
within his reach.” 

Dan had learned a great deal during the 
long weeks of October and November which 
had passed after his arrival in New Orleans. 
Captain Hutton remained there, almost over¬ 
whelmed by the duties of all sorts which fell 
upon him as one of General Jackson’s per¬ 
sonal representatives, and Dan’s errands 
were numberless. They took him to every 
point in or near the city which was of any 
military importance. He visited Fort St. 
Philip, down the river, and he went all over 
old Fort St. John. He saw every arrival of 
volunteers from the North, and he watched 
the gathering and drilling of the patriotic 
citizens of New Orleans. By direction of 
Captain Hutton, he was drilled regularly 
with one of the French Creole companies, 
— a good one, too; but as soon as General 
Coffee came with a strong body of Tennes¬ 
see riflemen, Dan was mustered in with them 



A 7i drew Jackso7i 


293 


and ordered by his commander to special 
duty at headquarters. This was in accord¬ 
ance with army rules. He became a private 
soldier on General Coffee’s muster roll, but 
it made no change whatever in his employ¬ 
ment as Captain Hutton’s orderly. 

The captain had had more than one pri¬ 
vate conference with Jean Lafitte, but as yet 
the overturned ruler of Grand Terre and 
Barataria had not obtained an interview 
with General Jackson. Perhaps he did not 
wish one, for he and his brothers had much 
business of their own upon their hands, and 
property to care for. 

Day after day went by. It was certain 
that the British must be preparing to strike 
a blow, and the city was all the while alive 
with exciting rumors. The work of getting 
ready to meet them went on with desperate 
energy. The expected reenforcements from 
the North had not arrived, but were known 
to be on their way and drawing very near. 

It was at half-past one o’clock of the 23d 
of December, that Captain Hutton stood in 
front of the table at which General Jackson 



294 


The Errand Boy of 


was writing a letter of some sort. There 
were several other officers in the room, and 
Dan Martin stood at the door, waiting for 
orders. He heard General Coffee say in a 
low tone to a gentleman near him: — 

“ No, colonel. We are all at sea as to 
their next intentions, but it has taken them 
eight days, now, to find a landing-place — 
since they captured Lake Borgne.” 

At that moment the door of the room 
flew open and the sentry on duty excitedly 
announced:— 

“ Men with news from the British.” 

“ Show them in,” interrupted General Jack- 
son, throwing down his pen. 

In they came, three of them, Colonel de 
la Ronde, Mr. Dussau de la Croix, and Major 
Gabriel Vilere, all stained with mud and 
nearly out of breath, for they had ridden 
hard all the way from the Vilere plantation. 

“ What news do you bring, gentlemen ? ” 
asked the general, calmly; but there was no 
calmness left in that room after their rapid 
replies were given. 

The British army had landed and were 



A ndrezu Jackson 


295 


pushing forward. They had captured Major 
Vilere at his own plantation, but with ex¬ 
traordinary courage and endurance he had 
escaped from them, to report that their ad¬ 
vance was at this hour only nine miles from 
the city of New Orleans. They had at last 
made a dash, in force, and they had done it 
exceedingly well. 

Dan Martin heard, but he was not looking 
at the brave men who had brought the 
news. He was not the only person pres¬ 
ent who could not take his eyes from the 
face of General Jackson. 

“ I wish father could see him now,” he 
thought. “ He used to tell me that some¬ 
times the general seemed to be all on fire, 
inside. That’s the way he looks.” 

Major Vilere had just ceased speaking, 
and General Jackson stood erect. 

“ By the Eternal! ” he said fiercely. 
“ They shall not sleep on our soil! ” 

Then he turned and glanced rapidly from 
face to face of those around him. 

“ Gentlemen,” he said, “ the British are 
below. We must fight them to-night!” 



2g6 


The Errand Boy of 


From some other remark which followed, 
it appeared that, unknown to the public, he 
had not been altogether unprepared for this 
precise information. It had not taken him 
by surprise, and all necessary action could 
be taken with perfect coolness as well as 
rapidity. Messengers carried out orders in 
all directions, summoning all forces, and 
among those who went, half wild with excite¬ 
ment, was Dan Martin. Hardly had he left 
the headquarters, however, before he was 
arrested, so to speak, for a hand was on his 
shoulder. 

“ Ugh! ” said a deep voice. “ Fight 
come ? ” 

“ To-night! ” shouted Dan. “ We’ve to 
strike them as soon as we can get at them.” 

“ Dat’s it! Dat’s de talk! ” yelled another 
voice behind him, and the Seminole broke 
out into a prolonged, bloodthirsty war- 
whoop. 

“ Massa Dan! ” said Black Sam, “ we’ll 
be wid ye. We’s gwine out wid Gin’ral 
Coffee an’ our folks from Tennessee.” 

“ I can’t stop,” said Dan. 



Andrew Jackson 


297 


“ Don’ want ye to,” said Sam, and Ki-a-wok 
added: — 

“ Boy go ! Whoop! Heap fight! Heap 
kill! Ole chief heart glad now.” 

Away went Dan and when he returned 
from that errand, ready for another, he met 
Captain Hutton on the piazza. 

“ Has General Jackson gone to the front, 
sir ? ” he ventured to ask. 

“ The general ? No,” said the captain. 
“ He ate a little boiled rice. He’s too sick 
to eat anything else. He’s in there now, 
lying asleep on the sofa. Nobody must dis¬ 
turb him, for he didn’t go to bed last 
night.” 

It was the last rest he was to take for 
seventy long hours of march and battle and 
retreat, and all the brave men who were 
gathering to follow him felt that the com¬ 
mander they so loved and trusted was ex¬ 
ceedingly wide awake. 

The celerity and accuracy with which his 
instructions were obeyed bore witness to 
his wakefulness. At three o’clock he was 
on horseback, near Fort St. Charles, in the 



2g8 


The Errand Boy of 


lower part of the city, watching the thin 
columns of the army which he had created, 
as they marched past him, on their way to a 
battle with a superior force. Rarely has any 
general reviewed so heterogeneous an array. 
It consisted of nearly nine hundred United 
States regular infantry, artillery, and ma¬ 
rines; companies of Louisiana planters, 
French, mainly, with a few Spaniards; Ten¬ 
nessee and Mississippi volunteers, mounted or 
on foot; New Orleans clerks and merchants, 
as full of fight as they could hold; a battal¬ 
ion of two hundred and ten colored men, 
and a band of eighteen Choctaw Indians. 
In all, two thousand, one hundred and thirty- 
one men. This force was to attack sixteen 
hundred veteran British regulars under Gen¬ 
eral Keane, in a strong position, with heavy 
reenforcements understood to be only a short 
march behind them. 

The city was necessarily left almost un¬ 
garrisoned, but strong detachments of Ten¬ 
nessee and Kentucky riflemen were near, 
and would soon arrive. The military mean¬ 
ing of this seemingly rash sortie of General 



Andrew Jackson 


299 


Jackson was simply that the British advance 
must be checked until their arrival, or New 
Orleans was lost. 

Hardly had the fighting men departed, 
however, before the darkest kind of gloom 
settled over the city. There was a panic 
among the people. Even before General 
Jackson departed, delegations of terror- 
stricken men and women came to him for 
encouragement, and he gave it to them. 
There were good reasons for their alarm. 
There was nothing absurd in it. The only 
really ludicrous incident of the British inva¬ 
sion, thus far, had been the posting up, here 
and there, and other circulation, of a sound¬ 
ing proclamation signed by General Keane 
and by Admiral Cochrane, in command of 
the fleet, as follows: — 

“ Louisianians ! Remain quietly in your 
homes! Your slaves shall be preserved to 
you, and your property respected. We make 
war only against Americans.” 

As a practical commentary upon this very 
funny proclamation, General Keane’s soldiers 
had promptly plundered every house within 



300 


The Errand Boy of 


their reach, and they dined well that day 
upon “foraged” supplies, around blazing 
campfires made of the ruins of buildings and 
fences. 

Steadily, but not rapidly, the American 
army moved forward. It was half-past four 
o’clock when the first small skirmish took 
place. Five mounted riflemen scouted too 
near the British lines, losing one horse killed, 
and two men wounded. 

The darkness came, and the onward march 
continued. The gunboat Carolina , for she 
was little more, was anchored in the river, 
within range of the British camp. It was 
understood, all around the American forces, 
that the sound of her one gun, a twelve- 
pounder, was to be their signal for attacking. 

Under the personal direction of General 
Jackson, his several divisions reached the 
positions assigned them. At half-past seven 
o’clock the gun of the Carolina roared its 
command to go forward, and it is said to 
have been an astonishment to the enemy. 
After their first shot, the sailors of the gun¬ 
boat continued firing, hour after hour, with 



Andrew Jackson 


301 


no means of knowing how much or how 
little harm they were doing. They were 
compelled to direct their aim by the camp¬ 
fires or by the flashes of the British artillery 
that answered them. 

Dan Martin was with Captain Hutton, 
following closely the rapid movements of the 
general. Hardly, however, had the signal 
gun spoken when the captain handed him 
a piece of paper, saying: — 

“ Life or death, my boy, take that to Gen¬ 
eral Coffee. You couldn’t find your way 
back to-night. Stay with him! ” 

Away rode Dan on a Louisiana pony 
which had been provided him. Already the 
air was vibrating with the thunder of the Brit¬ 
ish guns and the rattle of musketry volleys. 

“ Ki-a-wok and Sam are there,” he was 
thinking. “ I know where General Coffee’s 
men are. It’s getting awfully dark. I must 
be halfway, though. Hullo! ” 

He had not dared to gallop fast, for fear 
of running into or over some of his own 
friends; but now his pony reared and bounded 
forward with a loud, shrill scream. 



302 


The Errand Boy of 


“ She’s hit, I’m afraid,” said Dan. 

Another wild scream followed the first, 
and then the poor stricken brute sank heavily 
to the ground. A random bullet had gone 
through her heart and all was over. Dan 
was instantly out of the saddle and on his 
feet, but, as he picked up his rifle, which he 
had dropped in coming down, a dismal idea 
was in his startled mind. 

“No horse now, and yet I must get there, 
dead or alive. I may have to fight my 
way, but General Coffee must have this 
despatch. What’s that? Hurrah! I wish 
he’d do it again. I’ll go in that direc¬ 
tion.” 

It had not been meant for him particu¬ 
larly, but out of the darkness far beyond him 
there came the unmistakable sound of a 
Seminole war-whoop. 

“Red Shirt Joe,” all but gasped Dan, as 
he ran on, looking out as well as he could 
for holes and fences. “ I’ll get there.” 

It was not an easy thing to do, but he was 
not long in doing it. Then he soon began 
to feel better, for General Coffee said: 



A 71 drew Jackson 


303 


“Thank you, my brave boy! You’re a 
credit to your father! ” 

He read the despatch, and in another 
moment the half-frantic cheers of his ex¬ 
cited Tennesseeans responded to his loud 
announcement: — 

“ Jackson orders us to charge! Forward, 
men ! Go right through ’em ! ” 

Dan Martin was not surprised to find him¬ 
self going forward side by side with Black 
Sam, and he had caught one fleeting glimpse 
of Red Shirt Joe. 

“ Hutton was right about one thing,” Dan 
was thinking. “ Nobody could find any¬ 
body else, just now. All we know is that 
the British are over yonder, somewhere, and 
we must go and find ’em.” 

It was a fairly correct description of the 
situation, and it would answer for both 
sides of the battle. All that the British 
officers could afterward say of the onset was 
that, almost before they knew it, the Ameri¬ 
cans were among them. It could hardly be 
called a general engagement, even then, for 
it consisted of a number of small but fierce 



304 


The Errand Boy of 


collisions, all along the line. Of the greater 
part of these, Dan Martin knew nothing at 
all; and the very men who were in them 
could afterward give only doubtful and con¬ 
fused accounts of their own doings. Dan’s 
ears were almost deafened by the roar of 
cannon and the incessant reports of rifles 
and muskets all around him, the shouts of 
men and officers, and the groans of the 
wounded. 

On went General Coffee’s Tennesseeans. 
Their order was broken now, and they were 
hardly able to distinguish friend from foe in a 
succession of short, desperate conflicts which 
followed. 

“ This is awful! ” exclaimed Dan, as he and 
his two friends and a score more of the rifle¬ 
men suddenly found themselves confronted 
by an orderly line of English bayonets. 
“ They’re two to our one ! ” 

Not the less for that did the brawny back¬ 
woodsmen make their charge, and in a 
moment more there was made a curious 
military discovery. It was already known 
that an empty musket is inferior to a loaded 



Andrew Jackson 


305 


rifle. In spite of the darkness, some of the 
American bullets made hits, at that short 
distance. Then, however, it was found that, 
while the bayonet may be a deadly weapon in 
the daytime, with light by which to lunge and 
parry, in the gloom of night it is not quite 
equal to the long knife and the tomahawk. 

United States regular army men found out 
nearly the same thing in some of their sur¬ 
prises by red warriors on the Western frontier. 

“ I wish General Jackson were here, with 
more men,” was on Dan’s lips, when he sud¬ 
denly had to parry with his empty rifle a 
bayonet thrust which sharply scratched his 
left arm. 

Down he went, and over him strode Black 
Sam, hatchet in hand. Down went the Eng¬ 
lish soldier, but more were behind him. 

“ My pistols ! ” thought Dan. “ This is 
the first use I’ve had for ’em.” 

“ Shoot him, Massa Dan! ” yelled Sam. 
“ I’s done foh ! ” 

Dan fired as he lay, and his second pistol 
also was discharged as he sprang to his 
feet. 



3°6 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Sam! ” he shouted. “ Are you hurt ? ” 

The black man reeled and fell, and past 
him sprang the Seminole with a wild whoop, 
while the remaining British, of that squad, 
were falling back among the shadows. 

From that time onward all was darkness 
and confusion; but the word was passing 
along rapidly among the Americans that 
the enemy had received heavy reenforce¬ 
ments, making an immediate retreat neces¬ 
sary. 

There had been no defeat, no victory, for 
either side, but General Jackson had in this 
sharp manner convinced his antagonists that 
he was ready for them. 

Their advance had been successfully met 
and checked. His own furious assertion 
had also been fulfilled, for General Keane’s 
army had not slept on American soil, that 
night. No, indeed, they had not been per¬ 
mitted to sleep a wink. 

It was nearly morning when Captain Hut¬ 
ton came riding up to the slowly retreating 
column of General Coffee’s riflemen. 

“Dan, my boy!” he shouted, as he saw 



A n drezv Jackson 


307 


him with his arm in a sling. “ Are you 
badly hurt ? ” 

“No, sir,” replied Dan, ruefully. “Not a bit, 
hardly. I was in the worst of it too. But I’m 
just sick about Black Sam. He’s killed, sir.” 

“ Sorry for that,” said the captain. 

“ Yes, sir,” said Dan ; “ I shot the soldier 
that bayoneted him. Red Shirt Joe killed 
two more. I reckon he feels bad about Sam, 
but he won’t say anything.” 

“ Hand to hand, was it ? ” said the captain. 
“ So it was with us. I was afraid the gen¬ 
eral would get killed. He went right for¬ 
ward with the men.” 

It had seemed too great a risk for a com¬ 
manding general to take, but he had not 
dared to trust to any leadership except his 
own the chances and changes of that weird 
night battle. 

The British afterward reported their losses 
at two hundred and seventy-seven, killed, 
wounded, and missing. Those of the Ameri¬ 
cans were two hundred and thirteen, or every 
tenth man of all who marched out of the city 
that afternoon with General Jackson. 



3°8 


The Errand Boy of 


CHAPTER XVII 

THE BARRIER OF FIRE 

“ ENTLEMEN, it is twelve o’clock ! ” 
VJT There were a number of persons 
present, and servants had been busily placing 
refreshments upon a table in the middle 
of the elegantly furnished room. This 
was not in New Orleans, but far away, 
across the Atlantic, in the ancient city of 
Ghent. The speaker was Mr. Todd, son-in- 
law of President Madison and one of the 
secretaries of the American Peace Commis¬ 
sioners. He had invited friends to luncheon 
with him on this 24th of December, 1814, 
and the chimes of the churches of Ghent 
were ringing for noon. The company stood 
still, looking at their host, for his face was a 
little pale and his manner was exceedingly 
earnest. 

“ Well, gentlemen,” he continued, “ I an- 



Andrew Jackson 


309 


nounce to you that peace has been made 
and signed between America and England.” 

The war, therefore, was over; but at that 
hour Dan Martin was standing on the bank 
of the old Rodriguez Canal at New Orleans, 
watching a thousand workmen, black and 
white, who were plying picks and shovels. 
They were constructing a breastwork a mile 
long, across the plain, for here General Jack- 
son had decided to meet and defeat the main 
body of the British army, whenever it should 
come forward. It was understood that Gen¬ 
eral Pakenham had at last arrived to take 
command, bringing with him other generals 
of distinction. 

“ It’s the queerest thing ever I saw,” re¬ 
marked Dan. “If they go down three feet 
they come to water. They have to bring 
most of their dirt in carts. — Hullo! Pierre 
Chanon, is that you ? ” 

“ ’Dade an’ it is, and I’m Pat Shannon the 
day, but I’m not handlin’ a spade. It’s not 
dirt alone they’re bringin’. Look yonder! 
Cotton bales, begorra ! ” 

Dan looked, and there they were, great 



3io 


The Errand Boy of 


drays heaped with bales of cotton, to put 
into the breastwork. The United States 
afterward had to pay for two hundred and 
forty-five of them. They did not work well 
as a fortification, however, for the first Brit¬ 
ish cannon balls that struck them set them 
on fire. The smoke they made was beyond 
endurance, and they all had to be taken out. 

“ Pat,” said Dan, “where’s Jean Lafitte?” 

“ Sorra one o’ me knows,” said Pat. 
“ They say he’s seen the gineral. Onyhow 
the guns’ll be well hondled. Two hundred 
of our best min’ll be b’hint thim. Pm no gun¬ 
ner mesilf, but I’ll do what I can wid a rifle. 
Me b’ye, Jean Lafitte has kept his word.” 

“ That’s more’n I thought he would,” said 
Dan, but there was more than one side to 
the singular character of the ex-ruler of Bara- 
taria. At that moment he was standing in 
front of the general himself, near the other 
end of the line of rapidly heaping earth. 

“ General Jackson,” he said, as if in answer 
to a question, “ some of our men are already 
on duty. The rest are coming.” 

“ Let them serve their country well,” said 



Andrew Jackson 


3ii 


the general. “ Nothing more will ever be 
required of them.” 

“ It is their country,” said Jean, with an 
appearance of deep feeling. “ It is my coun¬ 
try. The American flag is my flag, and over 
yonder is the red cross flag of England. 
You will find it a good thing for our side 
that your guns are pointed by the gunners of 
Grand Terre.” 

The general shook hands with him, heart¬ 
ily, but it was not a time for conversation; 
and Lafitte walked away, muttering to him¬ 
self:— 

“ In his proclamation, he called us hell¬ 
ish banditti. I don’t care! We’re as good 
as hundreds of these other men that are here 
to keep the British from plundering New 
Orleans.” 

It is very likely that patriotism grows fast 
in the presence of an enemy, if it has any 
courage or war spirit to help it along, and 
the Baratarians were taking hold of their 
new duties with energy. 

“ Pat,” said Dan Martin, “ how our gun¬ 
boats are banging away! ” 



3 12 


The Errand Boy of 


“ It’s the Caroline and the Louisiana , ye 
mane, out there in the river. Some of our 
gunners are on thim, and they’ll fire to hit. 
Ivery man o’ thim hates the British flag.” 

That, of course, had something to do with 
their patriotism, and the same thing was true 
of all the Louisiana Frenchmen who were 
rallying so loyally and bravely to help Gen¬ 
eral Jackson. 

Reenforcements also from the North were 
arriving in considerable numbers. Some of 
them were in bad condition from long march¬ 
ing. Others were almost out of clothing. 
Hundreds were without arms, but every pos¬ 
sible effort was making to get them in readi¬ 
ness for the great battle which was sure to 
come, — to come, because no news of the 
peace which had been signed at Ghent could 
reach these two armies in time to prevent 
their meeting. 

Days more went by, and there were severe 
skirmishes at several points. It was not 
often that a busy headquarters’ errand boy 
could get out of the city for a look at the 
defences, although, every now and then, the 



Andrew Jackson 


3i3 


sound of heavy guns came to his ears, as if 
to say to him: — 

“Why don’t you come out here and see 
what General Pakenham’s army is doing ? ” 

He did not know until he rode out at sun¬ 
rise of the morning of the 8th of January, 
with Captain Hutton. 

Dan was now in a neat half uniform, and 
he no longer had to carry his scratched left 
arm in a sling. 

“ This is the last day, Dan,” said the cap¬ 
tain, as they rode along. “ The general is at 
the front. All skirmishing is over. The 
battle has come.” 

“ There’s been any quantity of skirmish¬ 
ing, sir,” said Dan. “ We’ve lost the Caro¬ 
line too. She was knocked all to pieces.” 

“We can afford to lose her,” said Hutton. 
“ Only one gun. They don’t know how 
many more we have, now, ready to sweep 
the level in front of the works. If they did 
know, I don’t believe they’d dream of attack¬ 
ing us in front.” 

“ Oh, sir! ” exclaimed Dan. “ Hark! It’s 
begun! ” 



3H 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Gallop! ” replied the captain. “ That 
was a heavy gun from our own works. We 
must find the general. I’ve an important 
report to make.” 

On they went, at speed. Dan already 
knew every yard of the breastworks and 
every cannon that was mounted to defend 
them. He knew that in some places the 
earthen embankment was twenty feet wide, on 
top, so that our riflemen would have a shelf 
to stand on when they were firing and could 
get down behind it to load. More than by 
even the largest cannon, however, had his 
admiration been given to a very tall flagstaff 
in the centre and to the largest Stars and 
Stripes banner he had ever seen, that floated 
there in full view of both armies. Of these 
it was pretty carefully estimated that General 
Pakenham had ten thousand men at the front, 
and General Jackson, counting all parts of his 
forces, about half as many. Any soldier 
could understand, therefore, that a British 
front line of three thousand men would have 
to charge at least equal numbers protected 
by a thick earthen wall. It was madness 



Andrew Jackson 


315 


to do so, and half the British army believed 
that it was to be defeated. 

“Captain Hutton,” asked Dan, “are all 
the Baratarians at work here? what about 
the batteries at Grand Terre?” 

“ They are all here, I think,” said the cap¬ 
tain, spurring his horse, “but the general 
sent men enough to hold Grand Terre. This 
is the only important point, though. There 
will be a hard fight, the general says, on the 
other side of the river. It won’t be of any 
consequence if we lose it or win it. Victory 
or defeat is right here.” 

Dan was glad to gallop fast, and in a few 
minutes they were riding through the wide¬ 
spread camp of tents behind the lines. A 
heavy fog had covered the plain and the 
river at dawn. It was just as it lifted, a little, 
that the heavy gun had been fired which had 
quickened the movements of Dan and Cap¬ 
tain Hutton. 

As the white mist arose and began to float 
away, it had disclosed to thousands of eyes, 
which had been anxiously waiting, the brill¬ 
iant array of the advancing British army, and 



3 j 6 


The Errand Boy of 


the sight was greeted by rousing cheers from 
end to end of the American lines, for General 
Jackson’s forces were all awake and in their 
appointed places. 

The general had not slept much, during 
many long days and nights, but he had been 
awakened at about midnight to receive a de¬ 
spatch from Commodore Patterson. He did 
not lie down again, but waited quietly, study¬ 
ing the meaning of other news that came. 
At a little after one o’clock, for he was look¬ 
ing at his watch when he spoke, he said to 
the officers who were with him: — 

“ Gentlemen, we have slept long enough. 
Rise! The enemy will be upon us in a few 
minutes ! I must go and see Coffee.” 

The fog, therefore, which might otherwise 
have concealed the British forward move¬ 
ment, was of no use to them. 

For one moment Dan Martin and the 
captain reined in their horses to stare over 
the breastwork at the splendid military spec¬ 
tacle presented by the long lines and dense 
columns of the British veterans. They 
seemed to cover half the plains with a mov¬ 
ing flood of red and steel. 



Andrew Jackson 


3*7 


“Magnificent!” shouted Captain Hutton. 
“ Never before was there such a charge made 
in America. Not even during the Revolu¬ 
tionary War. Come on, Dan ! There’s the 
general! He’s with the Kentuckians and 
Tennesseeans. That means that he expects 
the British to reach them first.” 

He had indeed given to his most trusted 
men what he considered the post of greatest 
danger, — and of honor. He now received 
his aide-de-camp’s report smilingly. 

“We shall not need them,” he said, who¬ 
ever he referred to. “We shall not be able 
to use half the troops we now have in line. 
The poor fellows out yonder are coming in 
to certain destruction.” 

Dan heard, but he could not at once be¬ 
lieve it, so soldierly, so numerous, so seem¬ 
ingly irresistible was the English force that 
was marching steadily forward. 

The American cannon were already at 
work, including the broadsides of the Louisi¬ 
ana , over in the river. At several points the 
artillery fire was making gaps in the British 
columns, which were promptly filled up, and 



318 


The Errand Boy of 


the mass of steady veterans in front of Dan’s 
position was as yet unbroken. It was under 
the command of General Gibbs. 

“Where’s General Jackson?” exclaimed 
Dan, glancing around him. 

“ Gone down the line ! ” said Captain Hut¬ 
ton. “ General Carroll is in command here. 
He has his orders. I have mine. I must go. 
Stay here! Use your rifle! Dismount and 
go to the rampart! ” 

Away he rode, and in a moment more Dan 
was standing on the broad earthen shelf, one 
of a long line of excited Tennesseean sharp¬ 
shooters. Beyond them was a similar line of 
Kentuckians under General Adair, and Dan 
could not have named the other defenders of 
that terrible mile long of waiting marksmen. 

The cannon thundered ceaselessly. They 
had the range better now, and Dan shud¬ 
dered as he saw the havoc they were begin¬ 
ning to make. 

“ Ugh! ” growled a harsh voice that sud¬ 
denly came to his side. “ Big gun heap kill. 
Redcoat go down! Whoop! ” 

Two hundred yards may have been the 



Andrew Jackson 


319 


distance to the enemy’s front when General 
Carroll shouted, “ Fire ! ” 

It seemed to Dan somewhat nearer, and he 
knew that a great many rifles of that day 
would not do good work at such a long 
range. The firing began, however, as the 
deadly marksmen deliberately picked out 
their human targets. 

On, on, with courage never surpassed, came 
the serried lines of General Gibbs, but they 
were falling like grass before the scythe, and 
at about fifty yards they halted. 

Dan Martin had loaded and fired like a 
boy in a dream, for the thought in his mind 
was: — 

“ They mean to charge right over us. We 
must stop them! ” 

He heard a wild outcry among them: — 

“ The fascines ! The ladders ! We can’t 
cross the ditch without them ! ” 

“ I know what that is,” thought Dan. 
“ Bundles of brushwood to throw in and 
fill it up, for them to cross on. Ladders to 
mount the breastwork with. Oh ! They are 
breaking! ” 



320 


The Errand Boy of 


“ Who-oo-oop! ” Savagely fierce was the 
wild war-cry of Ki-a-wok, and he was re¬ 
loading his rifle with a face that made Dan 
think of a demon. 

Minutes passed, not many, and the Brit¬ 
ish, heavily reenforced, were coming forward 
again, this time under the personal direction 
of General Pakenham himself. 

The field in front of the breastwork was 
already thickly strewn with the dead and 
wounded, while over it lowered and scowled 
the thick clouds of powder smoke. At 
every point of that daring, desperate onset 
the result had been the same, and the return 
fire of the British seemed to be of no effect. 

Again—again — the death-dealing Ameri¬ 
can cannon, hurling showers of grape shot 
and canister. 

Again the unerring aim of the cool and 
calculating riflemen. 

Could any troops on the face of the earth 
fight on in face of such a fire ? 

“ They can’t! ” was the thought in Dan 
Martin’s mind, and he shuddered from head 
to foot as he added: “ Of course they can’t. 




The British, heavily reenforced , were coming forward 

again. 




. 

. 


r nr< M 


b 


. 4 

























Andrew Jackson 


321 


We have killed most of them. Oh! What’s 
that?” 

He himself was down, for a random musket 
ball had hit him on the right leg. 

“ Boy hurt? ” said Red Shirt Joe, stooping 
to examine the wound. “ No. Bullet tear 
leg, — no break bone. Joe tie ’em up. 
Ugh!” 

Dan’s handkerchief was at once bound 
carefully over the bullet gash, and the red 
man resumed his rifle practice. Dan then, 
with some difficulty, lifted his head to look 
out upon the battlefield. He could have 
seen much more of it, if he had been on 
horseback, like General Jackson, riding from 
point to point and searching the enemy’s 
lines with a field-glass. 

He would have seen confusion everywhere, 
rout, flight, ruin, for in front of the American 
barrier of fire lay no less than twenty-one 
hundred dead or wounded men, including 
three major generals, eight colonels and lieu¬ 
tenant colonels, and many officers of lower 
grades, for the mortality had been great 
among the gallant fellows who had stepped 



322 


The Errand Boy of 


on so fearlessly in advance of their fast-falling 
men. The British generals had died like 
heroes while vainly striving to rally their 
defeated army. 

Hundreds of prisoners were yet to be 
gathered in, after all firing should cease; and 
the battle had lasted only twenty-five minutes 
from General Carroll’s command, “ Fire! ” to 
the breaking of the last British regiment. 

“ It is all horrible! ” exclaimed Dan, as he 
almost forgot the pain of his wound in gaz¬ 
ing so intently at the awful scene out yonder. 
“There goes Joe! I saw him jump down 
and cross the ditch. I hope he won’t murder 
any wounded men.” 

He had not heard the Seminole say: — 

“Ugh! Crooked Knife. Ki-a-wok saw 
Creek chief! Kill him now! Whoop ! ” 

“ There ! ” said Dan. “ Right in among 
’em. Likely as not I’ll never see him 
again.” 

A faint feeling came over him, and he fell 
back upon the rampart. 

“ Dan ! My boy ! ” he heard. “ How’s 
this ? ” 



Andrew Jackson 


323 

“ Father ? ” gasped Dan. “ Are you here ? 
I’m wounded just a little.” 

“ God bless you, my poor fellow! ” groaned 
Captain Martin, dropping on his knees be¬ 
side his son. “Yes, I got to New Orleans 
this morning.” 

He examined the hurt anxiously, but the 
Seminole’s skilful bandaging had checked 
the bleeding, and there was no occasion for 
alarm. 

“ I’m glad your mother doesn’t know it,, 
though,” he said. “ I had to come. I just 
couldn’t stay at home any longer. I made 
out to fire a dozen shots too. There l 
That’ll do.” 

“ Father,” said Dan, “ are the British com¬ 
pletely defeated ? ” 

“ They are beaten, my boy,” replied his 
father. “ Our guns are banging away yet, 
but the victory is ours. Hark! Hear 
those New Orleans brass bands playing 
‘Yankee Doodle’! Well they may. Their 
city is safe. The British ’ll never try this 
on us again. Do you suffer much pain, 
Dan?” 



324 


The Errand Boy of 


“ I don’t care! ” groaned Dan. “ That is, 
if it’s a victory. How is mother? And Jim, 
and the girls ? ” 

'‘They’re all right,” said his father. “I 
wish I knew where I could find a stretcher 
to carry you in on.” 

Stretchers for American wounded? Why, 
at that moment there were scores of them 
hunting all along the line for somebody to 
carry in. They could find only a dozen 
Americans, and so they went over the ram¬ 
part and down into the ditch for wounded 
Englishmen. In the very ditch itself, in 
front of General Carroll’s lines alone, they 
fished out nearly a hundred, so persistent 
had been the onward charge of those brave, 
ill-fated men. 

“ Stretcher! ” shouted Captain Martin, 
loudly. “ Bring one this way! ” 

“ Here’s one,” responded a voice that Dan 
knew well, and in a moment more it added: 
“ What ? Captain Martin ? Are you here ? 
Bless my soul! Is there anything the matter 
with Dan ? ” 

“ Gun shot on leg, Hutton,” responded 



Andrew Jackson 


325 


Captain Martin. “ I must take him some¬ 
where, — to some hospital.” 

“No! To my house! Take him to my 
own house, captain! I want the honor of 
the boy hero! He shall come with me! 
His father, too.” 

A handsome man, in the uniform of the 
Louisiana militia, was talking French en¬ 
thusiastically, but he was well understood, 
and Hutton replied: — 

“ Thank you, Major Delatour. It will be 
just the right thing.” 

“ O father! ” gasped Dan at that moment, 
“ General Jackson! I see him. It’s the 
general himself. He isn’t hurt, is he ? ” 

“Captain Hutton!” shouted the general, 
tightening the rein of the somewhat excited 
horse that was under him. “ The brave boy 
has fainted. I want you now! Hullo! 
Captain Martin ! My brave old comrade! 
God be praised! This victory ends the 
war.” 

“ It ought to, general,” said Captain Mar¬ 
tin. “ Dan isn’t badly hurt.” 

“ He is going to the Delatour mansion,” 



326 


The Errand Boy of 


broke in Captain Hutton. “ General, I have 
that report ready.” 

“ Mount, then! ” said the general. “ Make 
it as we go along. Captain Martin, I’ll see 
you again. I’ll come and see Dan. Thank 
you, Major Delatour. Hutton, we’ve our 
hands full. The enemy must be followed to 
the shore! ” 

Away they rode, for there is a great deal 
to be done after a battle, and two-thirds of 
the British army was still in perfect fighting 
order. Nevertheless, it was not the victory 
at New Orleans, so terrible, so costly, that 
put an end to the war. It was the treaty 
that was so noiselessly signed at Ghent. 

“ Dan, my dear fellow, are you feeling 
better now ? ” said his father, anxiously, as 
the wounded boy’s eyes opened again. 

“ I feel first-rate,” whispered Dan. 

“ Major Delatour! ” exclaimed Captain 
Martin. “ His mother would thank you as 
I do.” 

“No, no!” exclaimed the patriotic French- 
American. “ The favor is to me. My wife will 
care for him as if she were Madame Martin.” 



Andrew Jackson 


327 


It was an hour for enthusiasms. The 
American soldiers were doing themselves 
honor by their treatment of their wounded 
or captured enemies. No less than six 
brawny Tennesseeans were shoving each 
other aside in their eagerness to aid in carry¬ 
ing Dan. They put him upon the stretcher 
tenderly, and, as they were doing so, they 
heard his father mutter: — 

“That’s a fact! His mother won’t know 
anything about it until long after he gets 
well. And won’t she be proud of him 
then?" 

“ You bet she will! ’’ said one of the men. 
“ He was shootin’ away, right on top o’ the 
rampart.” 

“ He was taking his father’s place,” said 
Captain Martin. “ I shall know that there’s 
one more brave soldier to fight for my coun¬ 
try after I am gone. Did you hear General 
Jackson say?— I heard him, just now, as he 
rode off — ‘ Thank God for the boys of 
America! ’ ” 


THE END 








V 




















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A Story of Love and Politics 

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The Gate of the Kiss 


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and poet, favorite at court, and friend of the 
king. Miraone, a marvellously beautiful 
woman, idolatress, and conspirator with Sen¬ 
nacherib, and her servant Vashti add ro¬ 
mance and tragedy to the plot. It is a 
story of men and women, of the terribleness 
of war, with false love and true love, and 
saturated with interest and charm of style. 


Lothrop Publishing Company - - Boston 

















































































t 






♦ 













































































1 COPY DEL. TO CAT.DIV, 

2 1002 


MAY 2 1902 












... 






























LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 








































































































































